The Mountain Goats
Life of the World to Come
chamber pop
4 of 5 stars.
Life of the World to Come is more than just an album. It’s guided reading.
And while that’s what sets it apart as an invigorating artistic leap by The Mountain Goats mastermind John Darnielle, it’s also what holds it back from reaching the more accessible heights of his previous releases.
With 12 songs linked to and named for verses of the Bible, Darnielle explores the conflict of aspiring to the ideals of the book’s words.
Pitting the lust, desire and imperfection of humankind against this lofty rhetoric, he has created an emotional hotbed, a record that’s as controversial as it is identifiable.
On “Genesis 30:3,” an unsettlingly minimal mix of piano, guitar and rumbling timpani brings vivid life to the oft-told tale of Jacob and the handmaid of his wife Rachel. As he goes to another woman to make the child he couldn’t with his spouse, he says weakly “Open up the doors to the tent/Wonder where the good times went.” Then with bruised determination he declares, “I will do what you ask me to do/Because of how I feel about you.”
Turning this Sunday school story into a heartbreaking human drama, Darnielle has created a song that should make even the staunchest romantic question the extent of love’s power.
And though the more obvious songs are intriguing in their own right, it’s the truly ambitious numbers that kick up the hottest flames in this spiritual fire.
“Psalms 40:2” takes a verse that touches on God’s ever-present ability to save us and contorts the concept. Raving in strained bleats over galloping guitar, bass and drums, Darnielle depicts desecrating a chapel as a fulfilling religious exercise.
“Lord, send me a mechanic if I’m not beyond repair,” he pleas, evoking the image of a man who sees no other way to get close to his deity than by sinning against him.
The full meaning can’t be tapped without a quick glance at scripture, but the insistent arrangement and impassioned vocals allow it to also succeed as simple, well-rendered religious angst.
But some of these songs are simply inscrutable without the verse. “Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace” is one.
As piano and ominous groans of bass noise paint an apocalypse, Darnielle tells us how he is carting a bound man across the desert. “Drive till the rain stops/Keep driving,” he sings at the end of each verse, tying up a song that’s just scare tactics without the context of the Old Testament retribution he’s running away from.
It’s this trait that keeps Life from transcendence. It requires too much effort to really compete with the triumphantly universal catharsis of The Mountain Goats’ best work.
But for listeners willing to dig a little deeper, Life of the World to Come is a case study in religious frustration rendered with evocative melodies and lyrics full of emotional heft.
It’s a feat of studiously detailed yet viciously emotional song craft that proves once again that Darnielle is one of the most elite writers working today.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
