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The Mountain Goats The Sunset Tree Released in 2005 7.6/10 Styles Folk Pop Singer/Songwriter Song Highlights Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod? Song For Dennis Brown Pale Green Things |
The Mountain Goats eleventh release (and their third for major label 4AD) sees John Darnielle moving further away from his lo-fi roots than ever before. While Tallahassee and We Shall All Be Healed were crisp, well-produced releases, The Sunset Tree sees almost every remaining rough edge neatly smoothed away, even pulling a lot of the focus away from Darnielle's trademark acoustic strum, opting instead for selections of strings, piano and other pieces of totally uncharcteristic instrumentation. We're left with a band who can still write some of the best folk-pop around, albeit sounding a lot more squeaky-clean than we're used to. Some fans will lament the loss of the charming roughness that personified the preceding albums, and it's not an entirely unjustified complaint. While the band sound teriffic, with undoubtably their most complex and ambitious arrangements to date, the key problem with The Sunset Tree lies in the juxtaposition between the shiny production and the content of Darnielle's lyrics. For the first time, he's moving away from made-up anecdotes and joke-songs, and delivering a completely honest, undoubtably autobiographical collection of songs about the difficulties growing up in a dysfunctional family, with a heavy focus on an abusive stepfather. It seems a shame that such content would be coupled with musical backing that sounds, well, kind of fake. There's more than a couple of moments on the album where the confessional vocals and the dense backing seem to jar horribly, which really is a tremendous shame. That complaint aside, however, there is a lot to like about The Sunset Tree. John Darnielle's storyteller side put on a fantastic show on the relationship-themed Tallahassee, and it's nice to see it resurface here, especially with such overtly serious subject matter. His lyrics are enjoyably sharp as always, with some specific emphasis on the important role played by music in dealing with his adversities. One distinct highpoint comes during "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?," as Darielle hides from his angered father, singing "I'm guarding my face / Hoping you don't break my stereo / 'Cause it's the one thing that I couldn't live without / And then I think about that, and then I sorta black out" as the vocals reach a climax of emotive intensity that makes the song feel quite magical. The tradeoff between these very noticable pros and cons makes The Sunset Tree feel quite maddening. The few tracks which stick to the traditional formula of a minimal guitar-and-vocals approach ("Song For Dennis Brown," "Love Love Love," "Pale Green Things" and "Hast Thou..." in particular) are unsuprisingly the album's best pieces. If you manage not to find the instrumentation of the remaining tracks too inappropriate, you might well end up loving it. For the rest of us, it's a great, yet ultimately frustrating album - loaded with undeniable potential, but hampered by some poor production decisions. It's certainly a worthwhile purchase, and who knows, perhaps the new instrumentation will grow on me with future listens. |