We are at a crossroads in “When a Powerful Animal Comes,” and we must look forwards and backwards.

Track: “When a Powerful Animal Comes”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

It isn’t true of every song on Dark in Here, but “When a Powerful Animal Comes” feels like a song the band could not have written even a decade before. A lot of that is the growth of the band’s fuller sound, but it’s also that this would have been a real screamer once upon a time. If you just read the lyrics, how would you imagine John Darnielle would deliver the lines “those people in the mountains // they will never know what hit them?” Here it becomes almost contemplative rather than the threat it presents.

Backing vocals in early Mountain Goats songs felt like they served a different purpose than they do here. On “When a Powerful Animal Comes” they seem to reinforce that this is a group that’s going to challenge another group. There’s conflict brewing, but there’s also a chance for reflection. Our narrator senses the turning point they are at and, indeed, is forcing the point by their approach, but recalls that “life is short and life is hard and life is sweet.” The literal conflict here could be a few different things but the reflective point feels straight out of Songs for Pierre Chuvin. It’s been hard, it will be harder, but there were moments there, weren’t there?