The Mountain Goats - All Hail West Texas - Emperor Jones Records

Review by: Dave Morgan

The Mountain Goats is John Darnielle. He records himself playing acoustic guitar and singing on a ten year old boombox. He also refers to The Mountain Goats as "we" even though (at least on this record) he performs totally solo. Perhaps he's speaking metaphorically of himself and the characters which inhabit his songs. Perhaps its just a bit of (wink - wink) pretension.

Crappy sounding, solo, home recordings always bring up the slighly bitter taste of Lou Barlow circa 1991-92. It was great and neat at the time but those records rarely get listened to these days. Luckily, Darnielle sidesteps those stigmas by the simple fact that his songs tell great stories instead of wondering about in a self-involved stupor (though on a few he get perilously close.)

The music is folky, strummed acoutic guitar with earnest vocals. But where the Mountain Goats really shine is the lyrics. They're very witty and smart but not in a Pavement type way. There is a point to these words (unlike Malkmus and co.)

A great example is the opening song, "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton." While title may strike a funny chord, the actual song is a sad tale of two friends since grade school who start a bedroom metal band. When, after a struggle, they finally arrive at a name, they stencil it all over "in a script that made prominent use of a pentagram." One of them gets sent to a reform school while they both plot revenge, "when you punish a person for dreaming his dream, don't expect him to thank or forgive you. The best ever death metal band out of Denton will in time both out pace and out live you. Hail Satan!" This is the story of the guys everyone knew in high school; the stoner geeks who lived in their own world, except that its told from their point of view this time. Heck, Darnielle gives special thanks in the credits to "young men and women in bedrooms with electric guitars and Morbid Angel T-shirts all around the country. The Future is yours." Big kudos to John Darnielle for taking the irony out of the current fad of digging metal.

The second song, "Fall of the Star High School Running back," runs along the same lines. It tells the story of a football star who "averaged 8 1/3 yards per carry" and whose high school sports career was ended by an injury his junior year. After the injury he makes some mistakes, "selling acid was a bad idea, selling it to a cop was a worse one."

All Hail West Texas is packed with little snippets of people's lives. While the constant noise of the lowest of lo-fi recording techniques can at some points distract, the songs carry through. "Blues in Dallas" even gives us a slight break from the boy+acoustic-guitar set up when the instrument changes to a casio-type keyboard complete with the bleep and bloop drum beat. Who'd have known all it takes to extend the life of a style thought (or wished) dead a while back was some who could write actual songs and tell real stories.