Heave Media

New Music from The Mountain Goats

Satan Delivers

The Mountain Goats’ music isn’t for everyone.  John Darnielle’s nasally voice and critically elementary guitar work emphasize his lyrics that are consistently riddled with highly-detailed images of doom and despair quite well, but just don’t strike a chord with everyone.

If you are one of us who have fallen in love with the joyously melodic while downright exasperating “No Children” or his massively triumphant “Sax Rohmer #1,” you might be in the mood for John Darnielle’s latest effort: a 4-song work called The Satanic Messiah EP. 

These songs present a drastic change from most of the rest of his catalog.  With just John on guitar, drums, and piano, this recording features the independence seen in his earliest work coupled with the production quality he’s always deserved.  Lyrically, there’s all the disheartenment and angsty fists in the air you’ve grown to love.  New here is a more minimalistic style, in voice and music, that finally shows John understands there’s as much authority in silence as there is in his usual neurotic and frantic distress.

Download the work for free at his official website or, following the Radiohead model, for a price of your choosing.  He suggests a fair price for The Satanic Messiah EP of $6.66 (Are we sensing a theme here?).

Posted by Mark Steffen on Nov 11, 2008 @ 7:00 am