Cannibal Cheerleader

John Darnielle represents quite possibly the darkest corner of the singer-songwriter mystique – a once drug-addled, abused youth with no direction and nothing to live for who has managed to pen his sharp and painful past into pictures of a shadowy underworld, a poetic realization of an America long forgotten. And while the Mountain Goats, the moniker under which Darnielle performs, have recently released a pair of albums with more lighthearted instrumentation (Get Lonely and Heretic Pride) the song nonetheless remains the same. On his newest record The Life of the World to Come Darnielle recaptures the expansive loneliness of albums such as the Sunset Tree and Tallahassee, depth and horror bleeding from every song named after a different Bible verse. Featuring the bandleader’s best and most evocative vocal work ever paired with a gut-wrenching theme of redemption and damnation, Life of the World to Come is one of the Mountain Goats best albums to date, closing with the terrifying Ezekiel 7, a Biblical passage which features the line “The end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. ³ The end is now upon you and I will unleash my anger against you”. A terrifying end to a terrific album.

Posted: September 18th, 2009
Categories: john darnielle, the life of the world to come, the mountain goats
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