CALIFORNIAN staple The Mountain Goats have released the title track “Dark in Here” ahead of their album, out on June 25th on Merge Records.
Led by songwriter John Darnielle, the band’s sound on “Dark In Here” could be summed up as a sinister, wild yet calming Spaghetti Western soundtrack; instead of guns as ammo you have guitars and a bass, instead of cowboys you have brooding vocals.
As the quartet’s bassist Peter Hughes tells it: “Not wild in the sense of abandon – these aren’t those kind of songs. But wild in the sense of something undomesticated, untameable … you can fight the calamity all you want, but either way, it’s going to demand your surrender.”
Complete with Spooner Oldham’s Hammond organ and Will McFarlane’s whacky Telecaster the narrative of “Dark In Here” springs to life as a sort of pseudo-revenge fantasy with a moral: calamity has to resolve into calm. If the track is anything to go by, anticipation is key.
The Mountain Goats’ Dark In Here will be released digitally, on CD, on trad black and ‘high noon somewhere blue’ vinyl on June 25th; you can pre-order it here, or here if you want that coloured vinyl edition and you’re in the UK.
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