The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

In the mid ’90s the Mountain Goats released a series of lo-fi boom-box recordings on cassettes. Many of the songs featured only singer/guitarist John Darnielle, who became known for his highly literate lyrics, prominent ultra-nasal vocals and frantic guitar strumming.

Some things have changed drastically since Darnielle’s days of tape hiss. The passion, the anger, the heartbreak and the cinematic storytelling with larger-than-life characters are all still there. But along the way, starting with Tallahassee in 2002, he abandoned the homemade aesthetic and started making studio-grade headphone albums filled with subtle layers of sparse instrumentation that compel you to invade a song’s personal space. The production has the effect of forcing the listener to hear every word, whether solemnly or vigorously delivered. The songs are rarely packaged in bright wrapping paper with a big bow, but the gifts reveal themselves after closer inspection. For me, a particular phrase usually latches onto my brain, and from there the discovery process begins.

Heretic Pride follows in the same vein. It’s filled with engaging stories about an imaginary cult (“New Zion”), Prince Far I (“Sept. 15 1983”) and a persecution fantasy (“Heretic Pride”). As usual, Darnielle is not one to use common metaphors or analogies in his songs. “Autoclave,” a reference to the gadget used to sterilize surgical instruments, came about after Darnielle learned of a bacteria that can not only resist an autoclave, but thrives in the high temperatures. “This got me thinking about people whose hearts involuntarily pulverize any good feelings that come within a city block of them,” Darnielle says in an illustrated companion to the album. The song’s hook explains further: “I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam. And no one in her right mind would make my home her home. My heart’s an autoclave.” Like most of the album, it’s an upbeat song--a stark contrast to last year’s hushed Get Lonely.

Heretic Pride takes more than a casual listen to fully appreciate, as do most Mountain Goats releases, but there are some weaknesses that place it below The Sunset Tree and Tallahassee, two of the band’s strongest records that also follow Darnielle’s trend of writing concept albums. Sunset Tree focused on an abusive stepfather, Tallahassee explored a couple’s misfortunes in Florida and Get Lonely was a somber coming-to-grips breakup album. After a few listens to Heretic Pride, a strong interconnecting theme never emerges. It’s purposeful for sure, but there’s not as much payoff for the investigative listener as there was in previous albums.

The Mountain Goats’ sound is also becoming predictable. While the subject matter varies wildly, the instrumentation, subtle production, vocal phrasing, etc. has stayed fairly constant between the last few albums. It’s so familiar, in fact, that it doesn’t have quite the impact that it used to. Part of me relishes the band’s oeuvre and never wants Darnielle to change, but it has also reached the point where I think I’ve had too much of a good thing, and it’s time for the Mountain Goats to branch out and experiment more.

Still, even if Heretic Pride doesn’t come together in a nice, tidy package, the crackpot characters Darnielle cooks up still hold enough interest individually to make the album a worthy addition to the Mountain Goats catalog.

Heretic Pride is out now on 4AD.

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