One of the fonder music memories I have from 2023 was finally sitting in on one of KEXP’s in-studio sessions when I was in Seattle for the summer. The session I managed to see was for The Mountain Goats, a band that I had a lot more enthusiasm toward hearing than the group of friends I was with.
This seems to speak to the fact that The Mountain Goats appeal to a very particular type of obsessive fan, which I apparently am, having heard probably at least a dozen of their albums. However, the band kind of lost me in the course of their last few releases. They were always a very prolific band, but freed from an equally active touring life, it seems like the pandemic compelled John Darnielle to write even more songs than usual, many of which failed to hook me all that much. This is why I barely recognized any of the songs The Mountain Goats played during their KEXP session, since they were mostly from recent albums that I’d probably give a listen or two at most.
However, tucked in this set was a gem that had me intrigued — “Clean Slate”, a song from the then-unreleased forthcoming album Jenny From Thebes. This album has been billed as a sequel of sorts to 2002’s All West Texas, the last album of The Mountain Goats’ “boombox era”, when John Darnielle was recording albums alone with just himself, a guitar, and a Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox. Though Darnielle did recently revisit that primitive sound with 2020’s Songs for Pierre Chuvin, this later album doesn’t have remotely that harsh of a sound. In fact, it’s one of the warmest, most lushly-produced Mountain Goats albums, and it’s a sound that actually has me interested in this band again.
While you can pretty much always rely on Darnielle to write interesting lyrics, the pull of any new Mountain Goats music usually comes down to the arrangements or whether there’s an intriguing thematic cohesion to the album. That said, the latter element has felt less pivotal in recent years, as The Mountain Goats love a good concept album, but the concepts have worn a little thin. 2022’s Bleed Out, inspired by ’70s action movies, seemed awesome on paper, but in practice it just kind of sounded like the same mix of acoustic singer-songwriterdom mixed with the occasional more rocking song propelled by Jon Wurster’s drumming.
Jenny From Thebes, on the other hand, is a bit lighter on the concept album devices, as it tells different stories about the loosely connected universe established on All Hail West Texas. The album’s instrumentation also has a lighter touch, relying less on Darnielle’s strum-heavy acoustic guitar and more on delicate pianos and subtle saxophone. Really, all I’m looking for in a Mountain Goats album is the familiarity of Darnielle’s story-songs combined with something new musically, and this album delivered that, once again reaffirming that I’ll continue to be a Mountain Goats fan even when everyone else is past the point of caring.
Favorite Tracks: “Clean Slate”, “Fresh Tattoo”, “Murder at the 18. St. Garage”