Transcendental Youth - Mountain Goats (2012)

Mountain Goats is the reason you should never dismiss dumb kids making bad music on SoundCloud. John Darnielle is from my generation, so “SoundCloud” for us was home tape recorders, but the idea was the same. He spent years recording music as The Mountain Goats that was really just him honing his songcraft. By the time he added collaborators and started recording more conventional rock music, he was a master songwriter.

I can’t say enough about the hyper-literate, emotionally complex stories Darnielle weaves into his songs, or about how catchy and well-balanced the band has become around him.

Tracks I Liked

Lakeside View Apartments Suite - hope is the new nihilism

Harlem Roulette - An ode to everything probably being ok.

White Cedar - a ballad on Darnielle’s frequent theme of finding spiritual experiences in entirely non-spiritual contexts

North Light - You see a pattern emerging, but darkness and beauty go hand in hand