The Mountain Goats

This anxiety ridden yet wishful album from The Mountain Goats is an enjoyable album. Right out of the gate with “Amy Aka Spent Gladiator 1,” purposeful strums accompany John Darnielle’s vocals and a sense of catharsis is developed. The whole album seems like the journal of that strange kid in the back of all of your class that you kind of wanted to be friends with. But in a totally good way. “Until I Am Whole” is one of the album’s slower tracks and is filled with a sense of longing, “I think I’ll stay here/ Until I feel whole again/ I don’t know when.” Perhaps the most energetic track of the record is “The Diaz Brothers” which translates into being incredible entertaining. The album as a whole reminds me of middle school, I can’t pinpoint why but I think the record succeeds in taking you somewhere whether it is familiar or new.

The Mountain Goats will be playing at Emo’s East in Austin on the 5^th of December.