A variety of things that probably only I care about

The Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas

Unlike many bands, The Mountain Goats’ recent, semi-major label stuff clearly outdoes the songs from their years in indie obscurity. That makes their new reissue of All Hail West Texas fairly inessential. It’s a classic piece of Mountain Goats history, and has a couple great songs on it. But all their albums have great songs, and it’s a lot easier to find them on the more recent releases. The band hasn’t sold out, lost their focus, or run out of things to say, and John Darnielle has grown as a songwriter and performer since West Texas. The liner notes to West Texas do add some meaningful symbolism to the lo-fi recording, but still, this was sung into a boombox (not even a four-track) minutes after being written. The solo acoustic guitar is functional but little more. Even after being remastered for this release, the quality isn’t as good as the live versions that were already available on YouTube.

I don’t want to distract from the fact that this album was good enough to help launch Darnielle’s career – 4AD picked him up right after this. He has a gift for describing life for the young and marginalized (when the narrator in “Jenny” has a moment of freedom, he explains “we were the one thing in the galaxy God didn’t have His eyes on”), and really poured his soul into songs that he didn’t expect anyone else to pay attention to. This stripped-down style works best when it portrays righteous anger, as in “The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton”. But despite all that, there’s no reason to get lost in the Mountain Goats’ daunting discography until you have at least four great releases from after this point.

This reissue adds a few pages of interesting liner notes, as well as seven new tracks which weren’t preserved quite as well as the original album material. Most of those songs either sound like the lesser tracks on the album, or were never completely recorded. (The original recordings are used here, including abrupt stops when the tape runs out.) It does include one great addition to the Mountain Goats’ canon, though: “Indonesia”.

Are you a hardcore Mountain Goats fan who just happens to have a hole in your collection were All Hail West Texas should be? Then this was made just for you. Are you still a casual listener of the band? In that case, don’t worry about this yet. There’s a good chance you’ll become a hardcore fan at some point, and then this will be waiting.

Grade: C+

The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck

Ever notice that fantasy and science fiction themes are common in movies and books, but most music is strictly limited to realistic stories? What is it that gives us such different expectations in different genres? The Mountain Goats stand alone as a “serious” indie folk band that is as comfortable with monsters and cultists as with personal, realistic characters.

The trick is to treat both extremes with the same seriousness: Deep, often inscrutable lyrics and three-dimensional characters dominate all the songs. The band’s style, with simple instrumentation putting the focus on John Darnielle’s reedy but earnest voice, makes both the complex and the emotional lyrics succeed. Their latest, All Eternals Deck, is a perfect example of this. The liner notes go into detail about the apparently-fictional Tarot deck that the album takes its name from, and the songs feature vampires and cultists prominently. A first-time listener could easily assume that the entire album dealt with the magical, but in fact quite a few songs (such as the obvious “For Charles Bronson” and “Liza Forever Minnelli”) stay firmly rooted in the real world.

Of course, the stories are deep and interesting in both cases. “Prowl Great Cain” and “Sourdoire Valley Song” provide back-to-back examples, with the first examining the guilty conscience of a grave robber who betrayed a friend, and the second expressing fascination with Neanderthal culture.

“Estate Sale Sign” is arguably an improvement on Jonathan Coulton’s formula, with an intensely nostalgic look through the eyes of an aged cultist selling off his worn-out relics and sacrificial alter. “Damn These Vampires” opens the album with possibly the perfect Mountain Goats song: Featuring a narrator recently turned to vampirism, Darnielle’s voice and the building piano perfectly convey a stark, pained character with only occasional bouts of intense passion to break up a lonely, emotionless existence. But “Never Quite Free” provides a counterpoint to this, with a simple message of hope for a better life despite past tragedies.

If All Eternals Deck has a flaw, it is the inconsistent feel throughout. It’s normal for a Mountain Goats album to feature such wide variety, but so many early songs feature a sense of building doom that it is disappointing for the second half not to offer any pay-off. Despite the hints at a theme, this ends up being a standard collection of Mountain Goats songs. I don’t want to sound ungrateful about that – there are no bad songs here, and the band continues its musical growth from the early lo-fi days, but it often feels on the edge of true greatness, and this is never quite achieved.

Grade: B