Label: 4AD

Release Date: Feb. 19, 2008

The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
Matthew Ralph

I should have gotten into The Mountain Goats a long time ago, but a combination of laziness and indifference with what snippets I have heard other than the best Chicago Cubs-related song ever written (“The Cubs in Five”) has left John Darnielle and his 15 close-to-annually released albums lingering on my imaginary record store shopping list.

Until now.

A few listens into “Heretic Pride” was all it took to end years of indifference and motivate me to get off my sorry butt and seriously dig into Darnielle’s extensive back catalog.

Yep, I said it. I’m jumping on the bandwagon with a record many reviewers have already noted is one of his most accessible to date. While it’s slick production by the lo-fi recording standard, quirky pop sensibility and catchy orchestration is sure to draw diehard comments about how much better the older stuff, “Heretic Pride” for me at least is a great diving board because it has what extensive, production be damned recordings so often lack – a cohesive album quality that, like a good work of fiction, demands to be read in full.

Evidence of the record’s accessibility is written all over the infectious “Autoclave,” which hooks the listener with its driving chorus and plucked-string arrangement that would likely be lost in the Mountain Goats boom-box recordings of old. Steering the song into please-press-repeat territory is the way Darnielle, long known as a wordsmith, crafts the refrain. I had to Google what an autoclave was in order to make sense of the, “I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam / And no one in her right mind would make my home my home,” line replaying in my head.

It’s Darnielle’s ability to not only craft a clever line but deliver it in a way that lingers in the brain long after the song has ended is clearly one of his strengths. In similar fashion, after only a few listens I was doing my own wounded duck rendition of the title track line, “I feel so proud when the reckoning arrives.”

On “How to Embrace a Swamp Creature” it’s the line, “I’m out of my element” coupled with a simple catchy piano riff and a backing chorus of voices that drives home the point, proving to me once and for all the price one pays for not giving an artist all of the explainer pieces suggest he or she would like a more thorough review. I’m sure I’m not alone in my belated appreciation, but now that I’ve finally converted I look forward to exploring the years of tinkering with $20 boom-boxes and literary devices that have led to the wide open entry point that is Heretic Pride.

posted [03.20.08]

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