I'll never understand why John Darnielle decided to put music to his words. But I'm eternally grateful that he did.In the same style he's been practicing prolifically for nearly twenty years, The Life of the World to Come comes off like a dozen short stories layered on top of sound, his hit-and-run character development spiked with breathtakingly simple metaphor and description, all delivered in his trademark high-pitched, breathy vocals quivering and breaking with every emotional high point. Everything Mountain Goats fans have come to expect from him, time and time again.
Continuing the trend from Heretic Pride, Darnielle finds himself backed up by bass, drums, and additional instrumentation from producer John Vanderslice, resulting in some of the most musically dense songs he's ever written.
The songs themselves are based around the biblical verses found in the title, adding a level of density I won't even try to interpret, being the lost Catholic I am. Yet the beauty of Darnielle's songwriting is that he manages to integrate subjects as prickly or convoluted as religion and emerge unscathed, and there is no greater example of that than this album.
The songs themselves vary from the exceptionally dark opening tracks, featuring unsettling Nick Drake-style vocals over simple downtuned guitar, to more band-oriented poppy tracks, to the final brooding piano and vocals numbers that close out the album.
Throughout the entire record, however, Darnielle's words are the main focus, and his emotional delivery is just as haunting and true as ever. One finely crafted song follows another, his lyrics flowing perfectly through Vanderslice's woven instrumentation, resulting in one his most fully-formed albums to date.
In the end though, this review is pretty much meaningless: you either love the Mountain Goats or you hate them, and this record will do little to sway you away from either side. All I can say is, if you fall into the latter category, you're missing out on one of the most talented lyricists of our time, and he is well worth another listen.
