Monday, November 24, 2008

The Mountain Goats - Satanic Messiah EP

John Darnielle is to metal what Craig Finn is to hardcore. Who would have thought? Darnielle's old school with his shit as well, having recently penned one of the better 33 1/3 books on Black Sabbath's Master Of Reality. Appropriate enough for the author of The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton, I guess. Darnielle keeps up, as well: the opening track of his new four-track Satanic Messiah EP concerns a bunch of Brazilian teens waiting to see Brazilian metal merchants Sarcofago. That's a little esoteric and a lot of awesome.

The four songs were committed to tape recently in Darnielle's current hat-hang of North Carolina. They are spartan and austere for the most part, with the usual themes of trancendence and displacement. Darnielle is irritatingly prolific, and for the most part not to a fault. There have been two EPs and a full band release in the past year and all have been pretty top-notch. Satanic Messiah is being released in a limited double seven-inch run of, appropriately enough, 666 copies, but is also available in the trendy 'donate-what-you-choose' format that all the kids are doing these days. You can get the digital release as a zip in a myriad of formats here. Think about leaving a tuppence or two in the virtual coffers on your way out, ingrate. Up to the minute Mountain Goats news can be found here.

R

No comments: