A richly imagined world of wrestling
The Mountain Goats
“Beat the Champ”
(Merge Records)
★★★ 1⁄2
By now, the songwriter-singer-novelist-metal critic John Darnielle has written hundreds of songs. As the Mountain Goats, he’s issued dozens of albums, cassettes and 45s since he first started recording music on a boom box in the early 1990s. Under his own name, Darnielle is responsible for the literary novel “Wolf in White Van,” about a paralyzed metalhead who conceives a magnificently intricate video game. Published to high praise in 2014, the book was one of 10 fiction finalists for the National Book Award. The man can write.
In its own way, “Beat the Champ” is as richly imagined and detailed as “Wolf in White Van.” It’s a concept album, except instead of spinning odes to the pinballer of “Tommy,” the record’s overarching theme is the world of wrestling.
Specifically, Darnielle, 48, draws on the tumbling dramaticists of his youth, and does so through rhymed verses, oddly anthemic choruses and striking characterizations. “Nameless bodies in unremembered rooms/ Know how a man becomes a beast when the wolfbane blooms,” goes the chorus of “Werewolf Gimmick,” about a wrestler in search of an inring identity.
“Choked Out” features lyrics drawn from the mind of a grappler being held in a chokehold: “All the colors of the rainbow flood my face / I lift off right into space / I can see the future it’s a real dark place.”
Musically, the album’s equally daring, touching on meditative rock, Steely Dan-suggestive jazz tones (“Fire Editorial”), indie pop (“The Legend of Chavo Guerrero”) and, on “Unmasked,” tragic balladry. “Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan” is a memorable acoustic death march about a dressing room altercation.
Throughout “Beat the Champ,” Darnielle & Co. exude a sense of purpose. It’s the writer standing on the top turnbuckle, gauging the reaction, pumping the crowd before leaping onto the lifeless bodies of his naysayers. Albums are rated on a scale of four stars (excellent), three stars (good), two stars (fair) and one star (poor).