The Mountain Goats remain a rather wonderful proposition. An American Indie institution. They're the Guided by Voices who don't release too many albums. Just enough to allow you to keep up, all the time knowing there's another one coming up the line fairly soon.
They never release the same record although they do keep the faith with some basic grounding principles, Twenty First album Bleed Out adheres to them as if they're the Ten Commandments. Melodic, approachable songs packed with utterly wonderful lyrics that you immediately want to hear again.
They always seem to have a guiding concept for every record. This one focuses itself on the principle of revenge. But in the hands of a songwriter as gifted and as fundamentally empathetic as John Darnielle, always the captain of The Mountain Goats ship, such a pointless emotion is tracked and itemised with wry intelligence and acuity.
I've never heard a Mountain Goats record that I don't like and I very much like this.Set to the sound of guitars that sound like sober Replacements meet restrained Television or non bombastic E Street Band, Darnielle unwraps the basic principles of conspiracy theories and inner rage and make them look both as alluring and also utterly ridiculous and self defeating as they surely are, having an enormous amount of fun along the way.
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