The Mountain Goats

★★★★ Dark In Here MERGE. CD/DL/LP

Further wry and beauteous songs about the last year.

A third collection from prolific frontman John Darnielle since Covid reared its head, this was completed at Muscle Shoals by late March 2020. It’s another strong set – polished, jauntily sinister, with a running theme of calamity. Folky, upbeat Parisian Enclave features “rats returning home to our nests” with “spores in our lungs”. The Destruction Of The Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower, the LP’s passionate rock-out moment, considers Russia’s effort to drill through the Earth’s crust, its location the “entrance to hell”. Dappled, hazy Mobile is a spin on the guilt in Melville’s MobyDick, made honeyed by electric piano from Spooner Oldham and Will McFarlane’s chiming Telecaster. Some tracks could be Scott Walker haikus, their melodies lulling, their words apprehensive. Brainy, jazzy, prescient.