The Mountain Goats are, for all practical purposes, the endlessly clever and prolific
John Darnielle and whatever cast of musicians he's working with at the moment, which means the sound may change from project to project, but the overall tone and feel of
Darnielle's work remains remarkably consistent.
Darnielle writes finely observed, impressionistic vignettes that blend a clear, realistic sense of detail with mildly surreal imaginings, giving his work a literary flavor that suits his status as a songwriter who is also a successful novelist.
Darnielle's early
Mountain Goats releases were lo-fi, cassette-recorded efforts cut with a rotating lineup of musicians, such as 1995's
Nine Black Poppies and 2000's
The Coroner's Gambit. By 2005's
The Sunset Tree, his recordings had become cleaner and less cluttered, but his character studies were just as vivid. As
the Mountain Goats cohered into a stable lineup, with
Darnielle joined by Peter Hughes,
Matt Douglas, and
Jon Wurster, they recorded tuneful, thematically unified albums such as
Beat the Champ (2015) and
Dark In Here (2021) that ranked with their finest work.
Taking the name from the
Screamin' Jay Hawkins song "Big Yellow Coat,"
Darnielle first donned the
Mountain Goats moniker in 1991 while working as a nurse in a California state hospital, and began releasing cassette-only albums for the Shrimper label. Despite attracting a devoted underground following (or, possibly, because of it),
the Mountain Goats continued to release songs in cassette form only for many years, virtually using tape hiss as an additional instrument. Besides innumerable compilation tracks,
the Mountain Goats have also released many 7" singles for over a dozen labels. Their full-length albums include
Nine Black Poppies and
Zopilote Machine (both released in 1995),
Sweden (1996),
Full Force Galesburg (1997), and
Nothing for Juice (1997).
Protein Source of the Future...NOW!, and
Bitter Melon Farm (both 1999 releases) collected many early tape tracks and singles.
Darnielle began the new millennium with
The Coroner's Gambit for Absolutely Kosher before signing to 4AD for the release of the surprisingly polished
Tallahassee in 2002.
We Shall All Be Healed followed in 2004, and one year later,
Darnielle was back with
The Sunset Tree. Remaining as prolific as ever, he turned away from the intensity of
The Sunset Tree for a calmer, more reflective set of songs on 2006's
Get Lonely. The accessible and assured
Heretic Pride appeared in 2008. Next up was the Bible verse-inspired
The Life of the World to Come, the group's sixth album for 4AD, in 2010. Switching to Merge Records in 2011,
Darnielle released
All Eternals Deck, which was recorded in four different studios in Brooklyn, Boston, North Carolina, and Florida with four different producers --
John Congleton,
Scott Solter,
Brandon Eggleston, and
Morbid Angel guitarist and
Hate Eternal frontman
Erik Rutan -- helming various tracks. That year, the band were also handpicked by
Jeff Mangum of
Neutral Milk Hotel to perform at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival that he was curating in Minehead, England, but they were ultimately unable to appear due to scheduling issues.
In 2012, a reissue collecting long out-of-print
Mountain Goats cassettes surfaced on Shrimper. The set gathered 1992's The Hound Chronicles and 1993's Hot Garden Stomp. Following the release of 2012's dark
Transcendental Youth,
Darnielle shifted his focus to raising his young family and publishing his debut novel, Wolf in White Van. His subsequent return to recording came in the form of 2015's
Beat the Champ, a collection of songs about professional wrestling. In 2017,
Darnielle kept himself busy with the release of recording and publishing projects: a concept album from
the Mountain Goats titled
Goths, and a novel, Universal Harvester. Another of
Darnielle's youthful obsessions, multiplayer role-playing games, informed his next set of incisive character studies, 2019's
In League with Dragons.
The Mountain Goats' plans for touring in 2020 were scuttled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; in response, to help the group's crew and accompanists recover some of their lost income,
Darnielle wrote and released
Songs for Pierre Chuvin in March 2020. Its ten songs were recorded using the same boombox he used for his early lo-fi releases, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. The full-band edition of
the Mountain Goats returned in October 2020 with
Getting Into Knives, a sleek and tuneful effort which was recorded in Memphis shortly before the pandemic lockdown went into effect. Released in June 2021,
Dark in Here would be
the Mountain Goats' third release in less than a year-and-a-half; recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, it featured keyboard work from the legendary songwriter and producer
Spooner Oldham. ~ Mark Deming & Steve Legget