Dark in Here

552. Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

“Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light” ends Dark in Here on a slightly more positive note than you might guess.

Track: “Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

There are more than a dozen Mountain Goats songs about literal groups of people from one’s past. Lots of them are about that in the abstract, too, but so many are about remembering where you were with some folks in a different physical setting and what you were like when you were there. “Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light” follows the progression of then to now and even beyond that into the end. We move, literally, but we don’t move on. It recalls “Genesis 3:23” to me, despite John Darnielle mentioning in interviews to think about “Palmcorder Yajna,” because of that reference to two physical spaces but moving between them. That song is more melancholy, but here it’s not about the past and the present. It’s less one becoming the other and more both existing as a bridge.

It’s also a natural closer. After all the darkness of Dark in Here, we find ourselves literally leaving that space and being somewhere else, at the end of the road. It works with a crowd for obvious reasons: “who, who among you, who’s coming with me?” You are compelled to answer and you will find yourself doing just that.

551. Dark in Here

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , ,

The title track “Dark in Here” sets an antagonist as protagonist and asks an enemy to really consider their next move.

Track: “Dark in Here”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

“You who thirst for action // I will give you some,” our narrator for the title track “Dark in Here” tells their enemies. They seek to challenge the preparations and intentions of all who come for them, constantly reminding any who will listen that they live in darkness and that you might, maybe, need to be a little more certain than you are if you’re going to try to step to them. There are many songs in this theme, but I really have to hand it to “Dark in Here” as the apotheosis of the form.

The lyrics are strong and it feels full without leaning into the almost indulgent sound of some of the other modern tracks. It’s a great track not just because of what it is, but because of the scene it imagines. Picture the standoff from visceral songs like “Werewolf Gimmick” but somehow, maybe, even more intense than that. John Darnielle delivers this one mostly even, which is uncommon for a narrator this angry, which lets the lyrics carry it. It’s a good choice when they’re as strong as they are in “Dark in Here,” and it rewards multiple listens to really sit in the scene.

550. Lizard Suit

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

The act of fitting in is different than the feeling of fitting in, as we see in “Lizard Suit.”

Track: “Lizard Suit”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

If you feel like an outsider for any reason at all, the Mountain Goats have a song for you. If you feel like an outsider for every reason at once, they have “Lizard Suit” for you. Our narrator cannot understand this world and is putting in an awful lot of effort to push through that feeling. They wait even at the end of the train line for the crowd to thin out before they dare exit. They have found a way to make it through, but it’s playacting.

My favorite line is “let my habits form the shapes of days.” You can feel the strain in that line. This person is reacting to the point where the reaction has become a way to survive. Surely you can relate to that on some level, but hopefully not to this degree. The instrumental cacophony at the end feels like the natural summary of the structured, careful approach we see through the lyrics. You can go through the motions every day and you can allow that to be a sort of instruction manual, but inside, you’re better off admitting to yourself what’s underneath.

549. Before I Got There

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

“Before I Got There” finds the scene of a dramatic event just after the drama unfolds.

Track: “Before I Got There”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

A lot of Mountain Goats songs are about what happens right before the explosion. Especially in the early days, you get the sense that many of these narrators are experiencing the dread of anticipation and they see the train coming but cannot get out of the way. In “Before I Got There” we see the aftermath. This person was involved, in some sense, because they said that they have “failed you, sweet young men” and they show up just in time to smell the burning and to see the bodies.

Just as anticipation lets the audience imagine what comes next, here we have to fill in the blanks. We get so many physical details, down to the specificity of “heavy tracks up to the lip // just to prove that they were crawling,” but we do not know what happened or why. We can imagine a conflict and we have multiple references to an altar to tell us this is a holy place to some (and thus not to others) but we do not know exactly what this narrator missed. We don’t need to, of course, and the wail of Darnielle’s delivery drives home what this narrator tells us directly.

548. The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

Similar to “This Year,” someone drives home and anticipates a new world in “The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums.”

Track: “The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

John Darnielle has called “The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums” the most autobiographical of the songs on Dark in Here and it’s not difficult to see why. It’s a literal song about the things that make up the title and as a result it draws some obvious connections to other parts of the catalog. Beyond that, there are direct references across it just like the similarly autobiographical “Younger.” Some of them are to Goths songs, but “Never Quite Free” gets checked in the closing lyrics. The extended Mountain Goats universe collapses in on itself at times, but this is rare.

In that light, “The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums” feels a little bit like a sister song to “This Year.” We don’t know how old Darnielle is in this one or if it even is literally him, but it’s someone driving home and getting lost in the music and “toxins” of some sort, trying to face the world they’re headed back into as they leave one they feel safe within. Your music may not have been this and your home life may not have been that, but the reason “This Year” works is because everyone can relate to turning into that driveway. This one’s not a belter, but it’s space to picture that sensation with some more room to stretch out.

547. To the Headless Horseman

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

“To the Headless Horseman” finds a rider who acts as a manifestation of something that never goes away.

Track: “To the Headless Horseman”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

It feels a little abstract and your takeaway may be different than mine, but “To the Headless Horseman” seems to be a song about the sliding doors effect of who you could have been. The narrator imagines a stranger passing them on the road constantly and thanks God for bounty hunters who don’t take their marks down. We hear that this person fears being caught in a sense and that they feel like they’re just evading the proverbial hangman over and over. Sure, there’s space for some literal reading there with the title, but the obvious jump is to what put you in that headspace in the first place.

You imagine yourself living day-to-day because of the grace of some other force, but that thing visiting you could be part of your past. It fits with many other Mountain Goats songs to imagine a person haunted by their choices and their past self, pictured here as a spectral force. The struggle is not just with the memory but with the ways that memory manifests. It’s not a literal ghost, but in a sense it is the ghost of who you were when those things happened. This is a song that has enough room for very diverse readings, but I feel that specific shudder in this narrator.

546. When a Powerful Animal Comes

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

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?

545. Parisian Enclave

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

The brief “Parisian Enclave” sets the scene for Dark in Here as a hard, cold place that is going to challenge you.

Track: “Parisian Enclave”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

It’s not the shortest Mountain Goats song or even the shortest “released” Mountain Goats song, but “Parisian Enclave” is notably short. It’s less than 90 seconds long. It has 55,000 views on YouTube and zero comments as of this writing. This is the opener for Dark in Here and we mostly must consider what kind of album it opens.

You don’t get much breathing room in a song this short. John Darnielle really crams the lyrics in, too, fitting “beneath the streets of the city with my brethren in the never-ending shadow” in a half-breath that feels more instrumental than vocal. This one’s over in a flash and none of the images really stick with you other than a sense of a gross world you do not want to linger within. We see spores in lungs and brine and rats. Dark in Here is, unsurprisingly, not a world full of positive imagery. The band would probably challenge my use of “positive” there, as not all rats foretell something negative in a Mountain Goats song, but “Parisian Enclave” seems to want to make absolutely sure you know you’re entering a place that is not welcoming to most folks.

531. Mobile

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

“Mobile” is the story of Jonah, but it’s also about a balcony that’s as much in Alabama as it is in your own memory.

Track: “Mobile”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

I did not really love Getting into Knives. A few people have commented over the years here that I seem to love every song, so I think it’s of some importance to be honest that I don’t. I think a few of the songs are great, but a lot of it washes over me no matter how many times I listen to it. I’ve told the story before where I saw someone with a full sleeve tattoo of the band who told me they don’t listen to them anymore, and part of me wondered if my time had come. I will never forget the experience of hearing “Mobile” from the follow-up album while in that headspace. It shattered the idea in my mind.

“Mobile” is the story of Jonah, directly, mixed with a brief narrative of someone “on a balcony in Mobile, Alabama” who feels like the prophet must have felt. My favorite song on Getting into Knives is the title track, which feels very much in conversation with “Mobile.” In both, I imagine someone who is looking out over their life and trying to imagine what comes next. There are a dozen other songs I could pick here, but “Mobile” specifically, and maybe because I’m from a similar part of the world as Mobile, Alabama, shines a light on a moment that feels very familiar. In almost all cases, when I don’t love a Mountain Goats song, it’s because I struggle to connect with it. That doesn’t make it a bad song (and a live show will help you see that, for sure) but it makes it not for me, at least in that moment. I have not been to Mobile, but I have, at times, asked for the storm. Maybe you have, too.

530. The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower

Alex Russell Dark in Here , , , , , , ,

The narrator in “The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower” goes where quite literally no one can go.

Track: “The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower”
Album: Dark in Here (2021)

Recently I have seen a lot of people doing “style parodies” of the Mountain Goats, which is not a new idea but is on my mind as I think about “The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower.” I think it’s a song that would help you identify what makes John Darnielle’s writing sound like it does. This is a song about a real place (the Kola Superdeep Borehole is the deepest man-made hole in the world, in western Russia) but a thing that did not happen there. When Darnielle has talked about the concept he’s focused on the idea that the hole itself is fascinating because it’s an extreme, but it’s more his jam to imagine the hoax that sprung up around it where people spread rumors that the Russians recorded the howls of Hell when they dug too deep.

Someone literally goes to Hell in this song, but we still spend time imagining their preparation of lacing their boots and checking on their compatriots. I’ve made the case a billion times here that the Goats are all about specificity, but they are equally about the mundane. The single most extreme element of any of the hundreds of Mountain Goats songs is contained in “listen for the voices calling out from down below,” but it’s just as much about the fact that this person has one fading thought about how the people back home will remember them for their steadfast approach to life. The subject is grand, massive, beyond the scope of human conception, but this moment is when you sneak away from your buddies and decide you’re mentally prepared to descend, quite literally, into Hell. In that, you unlock why “learn to wait your turn” is necessary and not a throw-away line.