Of the Mountain Goats’ upcoming All Eternals Deck, on Merge Records, singer/songwriter John Darnielle explains:
"If you have ever watched say a 70s occult-scare movie where one of the scenes involves a few people visiting a storefront fortune teller, getting their cards read, and then trying to feel super-hopeful about their predicted outcome when what they're visibly actually feeling is dread, then you have a pretty decent idea of what the album is all about. JD, wouldn't it be easier to write an album of, like, love songs? Probably, I would not know, my focus is mainly death scenes and downtown Portland…. Other possible points of reference include 'Burnt Offerings,' 'Go Ask Alice,' and that one scene in 'The Warriors' where they're on the train and the sun's coming up and they're safe but you know the scars are permanent now."
Hear that? That’s the sound of a million music journalists bowing in deference (and to think, we were just going to call them “literate”). Darnielle’s entire release, posted yesterday on the group’s website, is singularly awe-inspiring and worth the read. It’s as happily abstruse as his other published fare, including his 2008 book for the 33 1/3 series: Black Sabbath: Master of Reality, was less a metal treatise than a pinwheeling froth of fiction.
All Eternals Deck will be released March 29; it is the Durham, North Carolina group’s debut on indie heavyweight Merge Records, though the esoteric folk-rock outfit has been active in various Darnielle-fronted incarnations since 1995. Full track listing below:
1. Damn These Vampires
2. Birth of Serpents
3. Estate Sale Sign
4. Age of Kings
5. The Autopsy Garland
6. Beautiful Gas Mask
7. High Hawk Season
8. Prowl Great Cain
9. Sourdoire Valley Song
10. Outer Scorpion Squadron
11. For Charles Bronson
12. Never Quite Free
13. Liza Forever Minnelli
If this comes anywhere near the searching brilliance that was 1995’s The Sunset Tree, we’ll be happy – and that last track certainly sounds promising.
