The furious “Scotch Grove” presents annoying pop country music as an instigator for a serious fight.

Track: “Scotch Grove”
Album: The Coroner’s Gambit (2000)

John Darnielle is all about extremes. The Mountain Goats consistently describe the highs and lows of the world and talk about death, love, and the things that get us through the days surrounding those things. Most albums weave their way through the things John Darnielle obsesses over and they spend so much time on the things we don’t like to think about that they become highly concentrated. This isn’t background music and it typically requires consideration. It’s very rarely light fare.

That said, The Coroner’s Gambit is heavy even for them. It’s an entire album about death. The approach varies from song to song, but the most crushing songs in the catalog live here. John Darnielle wants you to focus on your own end here as he presents the end of many characters, often in anger.

That anger is what makes the album so compelling. People die in Mountain Goats songs and John Darnielle is not afraid to confront mortality elsewhere, but he’s rarely this driven. The narrators in “Baboon” and “Jaipur” are downright mad and the person in “Family Happiness” might be the angriest Mountain Goats speaker. John Darnielle’s voice cracks and squeaks all over the album and it’s wonderfully affecting, though you need to approach the whole thing correctly.

“Scotch Grove” is right at home. It’s named for a city in Iowa, two hours east of where John Darnielle lived. One wonders where the fascination for this small town comes from, but it helps to have a setting. One character simmers towards another one, but this scene is closer to an explosion than most. With a reference to Bluebeard, we know that murder is on the table and John Darnielle’s delivery and strumming suggest that it might be imminent.