When you check out the Mountain Goats upcoming album, The Life Of The World To Come, the first thing you’re going to notice is that each song bears the title of a Bible verse. Here’s Mountain Goats’ leader John Darnielle’s explanation:
I guess the obvious question is going to be: “John, have you had some sort of religious awakening?” and while I guess lots of people might want to be coy about answering that, that’s never really been my style, so: no. It’s not like that. It’s not some heavy-narrative-distance deal either, though, and it’s not a screed. It’s twelve new songs: twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of.
Just as sure as the underlying religious imagery is sure to attract some, there will be some long time Mountain Goats fans who are turned off by this new direction. I’m not going to go into how I feel about heavy religious influence in music (it turns me off), but I will say that this album features a lot of the things that we all love about the Mountain Goats. John Darnielle has a way of turning simple, every day things into epic reflections of our lives. This skill is what makes him one of the best lyricists in the indie world.
What this album is missing is the highs and lows that is in all my favorite Mountain Goats albums. The album starts with a mellow, soft spoken way about it, and finds comfort in this tone throughout the album. I miss that desperate scream that John sometimes throws out there a few times on an album. Check out a couple of my favorite cuts from the album below.
The Life Of The World To Come is out October 6th.
The Mountain Goats – Samuel 15:23 | YouSendIt
The Mountain Goats – Genesis 3:23 | Boxstr
Related: What if the Mountain Goats scored Super Mario Video Game?
