The Mountain Goats
Sat., Nov. 28, 9 p.m., $18-$21, with Final Fantasy, TLA, 334 South St., 215-922-1011, livenation.com.
Chrissy Piper
|
rock/pop
If you're a longtime Mountain Goats fanatic who fled the flock once John Darnielle assembled the following he deserved, or when his lyrics started creaking with autobiographical pain (instead of the fictional kind), it's time to get baptized anew. The latest album is The Life of the World to Come (4AD) and it's as beautiful a musical and lyrical statement as Darnielle has made in all his 20 years at the mic. Once a solo project — just him, a guitar and tape hiss — The Mountain Goats has, over the last decade, evolved into a band for realsies, with bassist Peter Hughes and drummer Jon Wurster making flesh the songwriter's not-so-secret desire to rock the hell out. Much of Life, in which every song title corresponds to a passage in the old King James, does not rock in the traditional sense; the vibe here is more like crisp, crystalline delicacy. And then there's "Psalms 40:2," which jitters with tension, the snares cracking like pistol shots, the chorus testifying "He has fixed his sign in the sky/ He has raised me from the pit and set me high." This is the one they played on Colbert last month, certainly a transcendent moment for a congregation that still remembers the lonely Nothing for Juice years. But that's the old testament, and this is the new. Come on in, prodigal sons and daughters, the water is fine.
Also In This Week's Music Section
Comments
Be the first to comment on this article.