Tallahassee

Already touted in some quarters as a potential NBT, and released on the influential 4AD label, all the signs are good for The Mountain Goats. But when you sit down and listen? Well, I for one, found myself at odds with John Darnielle’s guitar-backed, stripped down, wordy songs.

Essentially The Mountain Goats are Darnielle, who is both the writer and the co-producer of Tallahasee. For the most part, the sound is sparse, uncluttered and stripped down – nothing wrong with that. The problem is that the first few songs fail to connect. The lyrics have a caustic quality that has inspired comparisons with Elvis Costello. But that is more in attitude than actuality.

The Mountain Goats seem more new folk than alt. country. That said, when you get a quote from a book entitled Cannibalism And The Common Law in the sleeve notes, you know you’re not dealing with any old James Taylor-style warbler.

And so it proves. The better songs do give substance to the critical expectation. ‘No Children’ is a bleak but effective treatise on living together. ‘Peacocks’ is taken from a quietly positive viewpoint and it works. ‘International Small’ is original, if low-key and conversational. Lo-fi home recordings have an integrity that is sometimes lost when things get bigger. It doesn’t have to be that way as the fuller backing of ‘Oceanographer’s Choice’ here suggests.

I think it is the way The Mountain Goats will develop – and I’m looking forward to the results.

Tallahassee is sometimes too real for its own good – but it does welcome an interesting talent onto a wider stage and for that it deserves to be investigated.