Songs For Lonely Giants: A Guide to the Discography of the Mountain Goats
Listening to The Mountain Goats feels like picking up a call from an old friend who has seen you at your worst and stuck around anyway, like the receiver humming with static and warmth. Over their twenty-something year trajectory, singer-songwriter John Darnielle and a rotating cast of instrumentalists have put out music transforming the depths of enduring trauma into moments of quiet triumph. John Darnielle, the central and at times sole member of the Mountain Goats, has shaped the project with a distinctive literary flavor of heartfelt songwriting that incorporates the intimately personal, the deeply resonant and the transcendentally spiritual.
All this being said, it can be hard to know where to start when a band has been putting out music since 1994 and released over a dozen studio albums to date. When diving into the twisting alleyways of The Mountain Goats’ formidable discography, their shorter, more focused albums serve as solid points of entry and exemplify different eras and currents in the Mountain Goats canon.
1. All Hail West Texas (2002): the lo-fi era
Released in 2002, All Hail West Texas has been referred to by Darnielle as the culmination of The Mountain Goats' early lo-fi sound while standing as a classic in its own right. This album was the last to be recorded on John Darnielle's Panasonic RX-FT500 Boombox, featuring just the singer and a strummed guitar. It opens with a poignant eulogy for "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" and goes onto tell the stories of a refugee finding comfort in simplicity ("Color in Your Cheeks"), a wayward high school athlete ("Fall of the Star High School Running Back") and a couple long since fallen out of love ("The Mess Inside"). Simple, poignant refrains like "The Mess Inside"'s "I wanted you/to love me like you used to do" and "The Best Ever Death Metal Band"'s conclusion that "When you punish a person for dreaming their dream/don't expect them to thank or forgive you," show Darnielle's songwriting at its best.
Similar: Bitter Melon Farm, Sweden, Ghana, The Coroner's Gambit, Protein Source of the Future...Now!
2. The Sunset Tree (2005): emotional gut punches with a polished studio finish
The Sunset Tree features The Mountain Goats' most popular song by far: "This Year", a song that plays out like a promise to one's past and future selves — you've made it through this much; you can and you will make it through another year. Released a few albums after All Hail West Texas, The Sunset Tree showcases a leap in recording quality and the introduction of new collaborators to the Mountain Goats' lineup. The Sunset Tree brings a much livelier, more polished folk sound. It's also one of the outfit's more autobiographical albums, dealing with John Darnielle's upbringing and abusive stepfather. From the explosive chorus of "Up the Wolves" to the restrained verses of "Dinu Lipatti's Bones", The Sunset Tree is a triumph.
Similar: Get Lonely, Tallahassee, Transcendental Youth
3. Beat the Champ (2015): the high-concept album
Released in 2015, this album saw the Mountain Goats return to the concept-album format of All Hail West Texas, but with a ramped-up sound production. Like The Sunset Tree, this album draws heavily from Darnielle's childhood, this time to pay homage to televised wrestling. The conceit of the album is its use of wrestling lore and terminology as allegory for emotional turmoil: "Heel Turn 2", for example, resonates with the murky morality of finally standing up for yourself. Overall, the album serves as a fine introduction to the Mountain Goats' more recent stylistic direction, as well as Darnielle's lyrical playfulness and employment of near-fantastical settings in vivid images that build on the efforts of the previous albums All Eternals Deck and Heretic Pride.
Similar: Goths, We Shall All Be Healed, All Eternals Deck, Heretic Pride
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