Image of the Mountain Goats by Peter Hughes
#9 Heretic Pride by the Mountain Goats (4AD)
John Darnielle, the man behind the Mountain Goats, is a cipher. He is a student of classical studies, but he is also a boxing enthusiast. He is one of the great narrative songwriters of our time, but is also a vocal fan of Scandinavian death metal (and, yes, I am saying that there is something odd about that.) He has written a book about Black Sabbath, but no self-respecting Sabbath cover band would ever consider sharing a stage with the Mountain Goats. There is no question that Darnielle is a mysterious character.
He also happens to be a terrific songwriter. His last three albums have been amazingly cohesive and affecting character studies. 2002's Tallahassee explored the entrancing combination of matrimony and violent alcoholism, while 2004's We Shall All Be Healed examined the nihilistic lifestyles of young meth addicts. 2005's The Sunset Tree took things one step further, as Darnielle wrote a song cycle about his childhood and his troubled relationship with his stepfather. He had written concept albums earlier in his career (Sweden and All Hail West Texas come to mind) but this trilogy is considered by many to represent the pinnacle of Darnielle's songwriting.
2006's Get Lonely was a departure, not following a set of characters but uniting unrelated songs with a single mood and theme instead. As such, it was roundly panned by the critics. Like Flannery O'Connor's return to writing short stories after the publication of her novel Wise Blood, Darnielle drew criticism for returning to a lesser form after mastering the greater. Also, the album was problematically boring. This year's Heretic Pride is also an anthology, mixing songs about monsters and mystery with stories about young people in peril. But this collection is Darnielle's A Good Man Is Hard to Find, wringing a new level of impactfulness from a familiar form.
"Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident" is an excellent example of this, showing the masterful concision and succinctness in Darnielle's songwriting. A guy enters the restroom of a Berlin nightspot after hours, only to find a sobbing girl slumped against the sink. The sight of her reminds the guy of another girl that has meant something to him. Some interpretations of the song have him accosting the girl - but this is not what happens. He doesn't acknowledge the girl at all, doing his business and washing his hands with scalding water. He leaves her there under the sink, advising her with a silent remonstrance: "Stay weightless, formless, blameless, nameless". A thumbnail sketch describing an encounter in about 100 words, it is one of the best statements on the desire to obliterate identity that I've encountered. Sometimes it doesn't take a novel.
"Marduk T-Shirt Men's Room Incident" by the Mountain Goats
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