Our doomed narrator in “Bleed Out” doesn’t have to imagine the end and goes out on their own terms.

Track: “Bleed Out”
Album: Bleed Out (2022)

Bleed Out, the album, is fairly high-octane as Mountain Goats albums go. The whole thing is “about” action movies, but I probably don’t need to tell you how heavy the quotes around “about” are in that statement. The theme albums about goth music, wrestling, and Christianity also are very broadly “about” those things, though the theme really does supply a lot of imagery on all of them. “There won’t be any wisdom from me // just a lake of blood for all the world to see” is the sort of thing you don’t hear elsewhere.

“Bleed Out,” the song, certainly has a lot of blood in it. Our hero (maybe we need some more heavy quotes, but let’s go with hero) describes their inevitable end over and over, including an absolution of the listener. It’s too late. You don’t even have to assume it’s too late, because “the smallest hole was several inches wide.” You just have to accept your fate. It’s time to bleed out.

There have been ten studio albums from the Mountain Goats since I started listening to them and I think Bleed Out is the best of them. The title track shows Darnielle (and Hughes, who is co-credited with lyrics for this one) and company haven’t lost a step: “And I will never lose hope // and I haven’t lost hope // I’m just realistic.” This wouldn’t be out of place on anything the Goats have ever released, but it’s especially powerful here as these characters start to look backwards and contemplate more than they look forwards and sweat. We won’t all die in a hail of gunfire, but we all imagine our version of this moment, right?