“Hopeful Assassins of Zeno” sounds like a song from thirty years earlier, but it’s so much more.

Track: “Hopeful Assassins of Zeno”
Album: Songs for Pierre Chuvin (2020)

The circumstances that led to Songs for Pierre Chuvin and the style of recording make it feel like an early Mountain Goats album. In the early days, John Darnielle recorded impulsively, at home, and the resulting songs all feel like little miracles. They aren’t all excellent, but the energy behind them elevates the ones that aren’t. It’s not exactly a huge statement to say this newer album sounds like those because it was also recorded in just a few days, at home, but when you hear a song like “Hopeful Assassins of Zeno” the comparison breaks down.

John Darnielle could not write like this as a younger man. That’s no insult, because this is a remarkable set of lyrics and a remarkable song. Some of the very first songs, especially “Going to Alaska,” are among the best, but those felt more like poems because they were, actually, poems. It isn’t that John Darnielle has universally, directionally gotten better. It’s more that he found what worked almost immediately, but has refined it over and over for decades.

“Get familiar with affairs of state // foretell the future // get a pretty good success rate” is a simple set of lines, but you understand this narrator as they say it. Darnielle’s voice is serious, but he allows that to sound like the tiny joke it is. The story here is in the title, but the mood is consistent with the rest of the album. What sets it apart is the evolution from decades ago to today, not the story itself. The characters have always been like this, but now their plights feel just a little larger.