Plumbiferous Media

Two years after releas­ing their 12th LP, the excel­lent The Life of the World to Come, The Moun­tain Goats is releas­ing its newest album, All Eter­nals Deck, which comes out later this month. All Eter­nals Deck doesn’t quite match up to the suc­cess of The Life of the World to Come, but that doesn’t stop it from being an impres­sive album. Above all, All Eter­nals Deck is cer­tainly more of what Moun­tain Goats does best - and given their his­tory, that’s nowhere near a bad thing.

The instru­men­tals are really where All Eter­nals Deck falls short of the mark The Moun­tain Goats has set for itself. There is lit­tle actu­ally wrong with those of this album, but they’re not quite at that level of excel­lence they have been in the past. The instru­ments rarely carry their own melodies on All Eter­nals Deck instead focus­ing on sup­port­ing the clear focus of the album, the lyrics.

The instru­men­tals can’t be faulted for forc­ing out the more curi­ous lines, such as “Damn these vam­pires…” on the track of that name, but it gets to be dis­ap­point­ing when the instru­men­tals don’t do much more. They set the mood beau­ti­fully, they’re at least some­what diverse, they sound entirely pleas­ant, and they don’t do much more. On The Life of the World to Come, the instru­men­tals would drive tracks, often force­fully, in unique and fas­ci­nat­ing direc­tions, and that’s sim­ply not the case here.

As always, John Darnielle’s voice imparts a sort of wist­ful excite­ment to every part of All Eter­nals Deck. Intense at one moment and rem­i­nis­cent at the next, Darnielle gives All Eter­nals Deck an emo­tional back­bone that is uniquely his own - never over-wrought or over-subtle, but instead the per­fect mix of over­ture and sub­tlety to irrev­o­ca­bly weld each image into the listener’s mind. It’s an expe­ri­ence that Darnielle has cul­ti­vated now for over two decades, and it’s one that All Eter­nals Deck wields expertly.

Darnielle matches excel­lent vocals with equally well-conceived lyrics, fill­ing All Eter­nals Deck with metaphor and imagery that is simul­ta­ne­ously fan­tas­tic and mun­dane. Even the vam­pires of “Damn These Vam­pires” are some­how relat­able, less Drac­ula and more force of nature that they are. That sort of rela­tion­ship with real­ity fol­lows through All Eter­nals Deck, from the image of “Rooms with heat lamps / Where the snakes get born” to the vis­ceral nar­ra­tion: “Rum­mage through the gut­ted store­house now / And lick the sweat from my brow… Feel the prick­ings of my con­science in my chest every now and then.” As an album, All Eter­nals Deck never fails to tell enthralling stories.

All Eter­nals Deck could very well be Darnielle at his best as singer-songwriter, but it’s cer­tainly not The Moun­tain Goats at its best. As good as the lyrics and vocals are, that’s not all there is to an album, and All Eter­nals Deck is there­fore cer­tainly not per­fect. Even still, The Moun­tain Goats has once again recorded an extremely strong album, and they do deserve quite a bit of praise for it.

This post is tagged 80-89, The Mountain Goats