The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely/Sunset Tree

I picked up both The Mountain Goats' current release "Get Lonely" and 2005's "Sunset Tree" at the same time. For the purpose of keeping things current, I'll write about the latest release first. But in my pretentious opinion, "Sunset Tree" is clearly the superior of the two.

The Mountain Goats is another in a long line of singer-songwriters posing as a band, in this case his name is John Darnielle. He's been putting his poetry to music for quite a while now, with numerous releases. "Get Lonely" showcases an artist who appears to have found himself somewhat. The melodies seem more structured and the vocals seem to sound more professional (whatever that means!) However, this seems to be done at the sacrifice of some of the passion presented on previous releases. That doesn't make this a bad album though. There are several gems, most notably "New Monster Avenue" and the stunning title track. I was particularly stricken by lines like, "I will find a crowd/ Blend in for a minute/ And I will try to find a little comfort in it/ And I will get lonely..." Powerful stuff, and who hasn't felt like that before?

"Sunset Tree" is a masterpiece. The passion displayed in a song like "This Year" is something that needs to be lived in order to be convincing. "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me." The majority of this CD plays like an audio diary. The instrumentation is simple, serving only the purpose of making this CD classifiable as, in fact, music. That's not to say the music isn't effective. The strings in "Dilaudid" add a level of suspense that enhances this song in a very unique way. And finally, "Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod" not only provides us with one of the more interesting song titles of the year, but it is also plain and simply, a slice of modern day poetry.Wake up new mp3 (from 'Get Lonely')
The Mountains Goats do not have a myspace page but there is a very interesting fan site that can be found here.