The Mountain Goats -Tallahassee

Thu 1st Dec, 2005 in Music Reviews

During his recent Sydney show, John Darnielle (aka. The Mountain Goats) played only one song from prior to his 4AD [label] era (which began with Tallahassee in 2002). It is a quirky little number whose French name eludes me (don’t ask me to go and find the Nine Black Poppies EP from which it comes), that is otherwise known as The Cow Song... A pretty, silly little tune about, yes, a cow, in which Darnielle glories that “her udder was fat with fresh milk and the black and white coats was as smooth as silk”. It is these kind of tiny details that litter his tunes – as if he were writing them for forensic scientists, rather than the average punter – even now that he is on the cusp of almost famous. Proof if ever there were some needed that you don’t have to drink a keg while wearing board shorts to get outta the indie ghetto.

Listening to that song, set as it was among an hour of recent works, reminded me of what can happen when you grow up. Nowadays the closest you will get to the quirkiness of a bovine hymn is in some of the deliberately obtuse song titles.

The three Mountain Goats 4AD albums – Tallahassee, We Shall All Be Healed, The Sunset Tree – are marked with more pain, abuse, heartache, bitchy recriminations, alcohol-induced poor relationships, separation etc – than any hundred emo or death metal albums you care to name. Of course, Darnielle’s light touch (his way with a ‘la la la’ or those everyday details that place the disaster areas closer to your loungeroom than to a Norwegian séance) obscures this fact. But listen to them as a trilogy and you’ll be surprised by what suffering you come across. But as he sings on his latest album, “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me!” No wonder he sings that line with such an unbeatable grin… you can’t imagine many Pentecostal preachers looking more disturbingly happy in doing so.

Back in 2002, though, after greedily lapping up every Mountain Goats release since about 1995 or so (yes, even those early tapes with the inaudible audio quality), Tallahassee was a personal letdown. It wasn’t the fact that he was on a ‘major’ label and there was a bigger sound. (Though I did miss the patented hiss of the boombox recording and his habit of verbally dating songs before starting to play them). In fact, listening to the album afresh these days it is hard to pinpoint what it was I reacting to. It was obviously a case of the record knowing more than I did, as is evidenced by how often I play the bloody thing these days.

There were predecessors in Darnielle’s catalogue, of course. Full Force Galesburg is a far more lavish and mature disc in comparison. Most of the tunes could be described as MOR, the harmonies more traditionally acceptable, and it lacks the proto-punk of a tune like See America Right. And of course it is mostly romantic sun-kissed stuff; none of the witchy winds that blast through Tallahassee’s theatrical stage. So to assume that Darnielle decided to ‘grow up’ for his 4AD debut is a ludicrous idea.

Tallahassee still throws up those delightful lyrical curve balls that stop you dead, making you puzzle what a line like “How come there’s peacocks in the front yard?” means in the course of a narrative. It is usually followed by an extended instrumental fill, such a line, an old Darnielle trick that dates back as far as at least Zopilote Machine’s second track (his first proper album; once you exclude all the tapes and singles). Giving you time to digest before moving on to the next course. “Our love is like the border between Greece and Albania” is not a line you’d expect to hear on many albums released in our lifetime. Especially sung so achingly, preciously. Yes, growing up don’t mean churning out shit like tears in heaven.

Fourteen tunes about a couple who drive to (surprise) Tallahassee to live in a house they have bought sight unseen, it is a complete story that introduces the basic Peter Hughes/Darenielle duo that have settled into the Mountain Goats moniker these past few years. (Previously the band was, aside from a few earlier recordings that also credited the Bright Mountain Choir, just Darnielle and his shitty little boombox). And it is not a happy story, lemme tell you brother, as the album ends with the death of Darnielle’s alpha couple.

Over the years, The Mountain Goats releases have been littered with two different ongoing series – the “Going to…” and the “Alpha…” tales. The former primarily being highly poetic spins of the self, I would suggest; the latter being a chance to let the dark stuff of relationships seep into his work. Darnielle would say it is all fiction. Everyone else disagrees. Of course it is all made up: but with those injections of the everyday – the walk to pay a bill, that time you were locked outside and had nothing to do but stare into the sidewalk, then the way the light hits your glass one midsummer afternoon – that creep into the story, tinging the fantasy just enough to add some reality bite. Alpha Rats Nest puts to bed Darnielle’s ruined, disaster-ridden couple and in doing so manages to open his lyrical cupboard to fresh material. (most notably the hatchet job on the self evidenced on The Sunset Tree). As the couple burn to death in their homes, he chirps away “sing sing sing” in all his kumbayah zest. In the hands of other performers one cant help but feel there would be a viola or two, an ethereal female vocal wailing in the background. Two lovers burned in their bead never sounded so life affirming. A bedsit We Shall Overcome.

Tallahassee puts it plainly, now that I have the ears to hear – the sound of the world en masse being introduced to one of our generations true mavericks. With the smarts of a Tennessee Williams, the pop culture knowledge of a boxing fanatic, the empathy of a hospital nurse, and the brilliance of somebody who never thought they would ever be heard outside of Bolivia or Sweden. As such, Tallahassee stands as Darnielle’s The Soft Bulletin, his Odelay.