The Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride

I must admit to feeling a bit out of my depth here, mainly because I feel like a bit of a Johnny-come-lately. I am, in fact when it comes to The Mountain Goats, a band with a long history and an intimidating number of albums and other recordings. So here I am, hearing a full album of theirs for the first time. So this review won’t contain any comparisons to John Darnielle’s previous work. I can’t tell if this album is a progression, or more commercial, or more ‘back to the roots’, or whatever. In fact, this review won’t say anything more than it’s a very decent, very American folk-rock album. I really like it, more each time I hear it. Sorry if that doesn’t tell you much, but I’m all out of in-depth analysis today. Hear for yourself - you can actually listen to excerpts from every track on the album at the 4AD website.

However, it’s worth mentioning one of the things that I like the most about it though – the promo came with a copy of a brilliant set of drawings by Jeffrey Lewis – he’s done one illustrative description of each song (which can be seen here - click 1, 2 and 3 - thanks to Sweeping the Nation for the link) and these only serve to enhance Darnielle’s wryly interesting lyrics. Bonus. I hope it’s part of the finally released CD/vinyl set.

Download: The Mountain Goats – San Bernardino
Download: The Mountain Goats – Lovecraft in Brooklyn

Heretic Pride is out on 18 February. Pre-order from Amazon. It’ll no doubt be available at emusic too.