The Mountain Goats, Heretic Pride

I have to confess little knowledge of The Mountain Goats. All I know* is that the band is led by a fellow of the name John Darnielle, who also writes all the songs. Heretic Pride, released February 19^th of this year, is their 16^th album.

My brief research tells me that Darnielle is known for his powerful songwriting skills. After listening to Heretic Pride numerous times, I tend to agree. Such tongue-in-cheek tunes as “How To Embrace a Swamp Creature” and “Michael Myers Resplendent,” or touchingly beautiful love songs as “San Bernadino” and “So Desperate,” feature writing that is innovative and talented. The frequent string arrangements on this album are absolutely fantastic and lend great beauty to the whole. I’ve read that Darnielle is also known for being very literate with his lyrics, making references to various writers, stories, and world mythologies. Such examples here include the very title to “Sax Rohmer #1” (Sax Rohmer was an author, his most lasting creation being Fu Manchu) and H.P. Lovecraft’s stay in New York City, as referenced in “Lovecraft in Brooklyn.” His other knowledge extends to lake monsters (“Tianchi Lake”) and 1970s reggae artists such as Prince Far I (the vaguely reggae “Sept 15 1983,” the date Prince Far died).

“Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident” caught my attention just from the title since I have a big stiffy for Mesopotamian mythology. And I was promptly disappointed when I find it has nothing to do with any ancient gods from the Fertile Crescent and more to do with someone wearing a t-shirt for a Swedish black metal band that is named after the Babylonian diety. I’m not quite sure I fully understand what it’s about (alternate theories abound, saying rape, anonymous bathroom sex with overtones of guilt, or maybe a “don’t get involved” sort of situation, etc.), but it’s undeniably one of the most touching and unsettling songs on the album. That is, unless you pay no attention to the words.

The first song I heard from Heretic Pride was “Lovecraft in Brooklyn” after seeing it on music blog The Rich Girls Are Weeping. Unfortunately, it created an expectation for something more rock-oriented than the more folk-styled material I wound up with. I don’t really have a problem with this, since I probably should have done more research on the band before picking this up. However, I do have some issues with Heretic Pride.

First, and this criticism has more to do with the band as a whole, is that John Darnielle has a voice that I find to be really annoying. He has a pitch that makes it difficult to even want to listen to him, which is very detrimental to a band that has a reputation for clever songwriting. All those fine words get lost when the mind wanders away to avoid the voice you’re hearing. Another complaint is the misuse of guest musician Annie Clark (better known to some of you as St. Vincent). She performs guitar and harmony vocals on “Autoclave,” but you wouldn’t notice because her voice is high and buried so far down in the mix that it’s pointless to even mention that she was ever recording with them. She sounds more like her voice was a vocal effect added to Darnielle's microphone than having any distinctions of her own. Annie Clark has a beautiful voice, and should have been boosted a bit more than what wound up on the final product. Her talent was wasted here.

Art direction and photography from the usual 4AD suppliers Vaughan Oliver/v23 and Marc Atkins (respectively), it’s beautiful, blah, blah, blah. There are no printed lyrics, which I find a disappointment considering how many (including myself) think so highly of Darnielle’s songwriting. I feel like having something printed might make it easier to follow since his voice is not conducive to attention retention, but alas, all you get is a digipak with some nice photo work for the front and back. The photography is rather sparse, which is surprising for a 4AD release.

I have mixed feelings on Heretic Pride. It has just about everything I like in music: excellent songwriting, fantastic arrangements, and topics I can get behind. But that annoying singing really kicks it down more than a couple notches. There are vocalists that are bad but ultimately interesting; unfortunately, Darnielle isn’t one of them. As such, I can’t really recommend this unless you can handle the man’s voice. In other words, do what I didn’t do, and get off your butt and research the band and the band’s sound before risking disappointment.



The Mountain Goats official website and a myspace that claims to be official, but there is some doubt given prior events.


*Not entirely true. I also know the idiots at the local Borders filed Heretic Pride in the H section instead of the M section, where there already was a Mountain Goats album. I had been looking for this album at that damn store for weeks, logically looking for it in the Ms.