[.ca] Sunset Tree

From Amazon.com:
There has always been something about John Darnielle's lyrics; even when you're not exactly sure what he's talking about, it always feels like he's telling it like it is. Not that metaphor is a major player on The Sunset Tree, the latest album from the Mountain Goats (of which Darnielle is the founder, frontman, and once only member.) Songs like "This Year," "Dance Music," and "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?" are painfully honest about his traumatic childhood and abusive stepfather. You might think that an album about child abuse would be hard to listen to, but as always, hearing Darnielle's lyrics is an honor and a privilege. Trying experiences are captured with deceptively simple statements (is there any better expression of determination than "I will make it through this year if it kills me"?) On this CD, Darnielle also remembers revered (yet cocaine-addled) reggae star Dennis Brown. ("It took all the coke in town to bring down Dennis Brown. On the day my lung collapses, we'll see just how much it takes.") Though the Mountain Goats have apparently done well enough for Darnielle to quit his day job as a nurse, they don't yet have all the fans they deserve. Don't wait to join the fold. --Leah Weathersby

The Sunset Tree:
A mid-year album-of-the-year contender from Lo-Fi indie rockers The Mountain Goats, 'The Sunset Tree' is the best collection of tunes lead singer and guitarist John Darnielle has never recorded on his boom box. Thirteen short songs (the longest being sightly more than four minutes), all done in a sparse, slightly rough manner, with imaginative lyrics and neatly varied music, make up the album. A loose animal theme keeps things together. The sudden realization that the album's crammed with great moments raises it. And Darnielle's personal imprint (songwriting, voice, instrument, emotion and storytelling) elevates it to the level of a must-listen. Heck, it's a pretty affecting album, too. Not in an overly sentimental manner, either, but in an unexpected and disarming way. And at a time when it seems that every new fab band is being compared to some other, older, better band, it's nice to be able to answer the ever-so-horrible "who do they sound like?" question with: "They sound like the friggin' Mountain Goats."

• You or Your Memory
• Broom People
• This Year
• Dilaudid
• Dance Music
• Dinu Lipatti's Bones
• Up the Wolves
• Lion's Teeth
• Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod
• Magpie
• Song for Dennis Brown
• Love Love Love
• Pale Green Things