Great instruments, not-great songs
3
By God of Thunder
I'm a huge Mountain Goats fan. I have all the albums. I've seen them live 6 times. I go through phaes where I'll listen to nothing but the Mountain Goats for months.
I don't think this is their best album.
The good: The instruments. Matt Douglas has been a great addition to the band. His keyboards and his saxophone on this album demonstrate why. Jon Wurster provides some fantastic drumming in "Younger" and "Sicilian Crest." "Younger" has a jam session at the end that's an unexpected surprise from the Mountain Goats. They're trying ew things with their sound and I like much of it.
The bad: The songs in general don't do much for me. There is no song on here that would crack my list of top 50 Mountain Goats songs... yes, I said top 50... they have a lot of songs and many of them are better than the best song here. Supposedly, John originally wnted to write a rock opera about a wizard, but he abandoned that project and did this. I don't see many songs that fit the theme, and I don't like John's explanations of how they're supposed to.
There are some good songs on here, "Done Bleeding," "Younger," "Doc Gooden," "Going Invisible 2" and "An Antidote For Strychnine." The album is one of my least favorite mountain Goats albums. However, even my least favorite Mountain Goats albums aren't bad.
