Review: The Mountain Goats at Salvage Station
I still remember where I was the first time I heard The Mountain Goats.
I sat in my parents’ living room, in front of their desktop computer, listening to a Pandora station I’d just established for “cello rock.” On came the opening churn of low strings for “Dilaudid” off the band’s 2005 album, The Sunset Tree, released a couple of years earlier, and shortly after came the declamatory vocals of John Darnielle.
I was instantly hooked.
Nevertheless, it was an unrepresentative introduction to The Mountain Goats’ catalog. The project had earned its critical cred from a decade of direct-to-boombox, lo-fi releases featuring Darnielle alone on acoustic guitar, culminating in 2002’s All Hail West Texas. Polished orchestral compositions? Not so much. Poetic, catchy, and full of emotional power? Absolutely. I still find myself singing songs from that era, such as “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton” and “Cubs in Five,” on a weekly basis.
Yet I think that initial love affair with “Dilaudid” set me on the right path to be delighted by The Mountain Goats when I finally got to see them play at Salvage Station on April 22. Darnielle, the band’s founder and only consistent member, has constantly shifted as an artist over 30-plus years, working with new collaborators and adjusting the complexity of his arrangements for each album. His latest offering, Jenny From Thebes, is arguably the most intricate yet, awash in horns and string parts that reminded me of The Dear Hunter’s baroque pop.
But there are two common threads running through all of Darnielle’s evolutions: masterful songcraft and his inimitably urgent voice. Those touchstones are exactly what he and his four-piece backing band put on full display in Asheville.
What Darnielle does better than nearly any other vocalist I’ve heard is hold space and immediacy in high tension. His delivery was wild-eyed, rapidly wordy, seeming to strain the top of his range — and then it paused, letting the music roll on beneath. The listener was forced to hang on the words, to reflect or anticipate, before another lyrical fragment stabbed through. The distinction between singing and storytelling broke down, or perhaps was rendered irrelevant.
The band Darnielle has assembled recognized that unique gift and moved in support of the frontman at all times. Longtime Mountain Goats bassist Peter Hughes, for example, keenly understood his instrument’s structural role, framing Darnielle’s colorful chord changes without drawing undue attention to the low end. He kept in pocket rhythms with drummer Jon Wurster, a restrained yet potent heartbeat.
Multi-instrumentalists Matt Douglas and Isa Burke got their chances to shine on saxophone and violin, respectively, but they thrilled the most when playing lead and hollow-body electric guitars alongside Darnielle’s acoustic. To ape the lyricist’s beloved classical references, it was like the three heads of Cerberus, the hound of Hades, baying in one accord.
It’s such a pleasure to watch an unselfish band backing a talented songwriter, especially one with such an extensive back catalog. One comes to understand that, when the songs are strong enough, it doesn’t really matter what instrumental forces realized them on their first recording. The chords, melodies, rhythms, and lyrics instead expand to contain the energy of the ensemble; they can’t help but bear the vision of their creator in any form.
And yet there’s something to be said for when the forces expand to include the audience, as when the hundreds in attendance sang along with the life-affirming anthem of “This Year” to close out the set. Of course I was among them.
(Photos by Micah Rogers)
