The
Mountain Goats ? fronted by singer-songwriter John Darnielle ? originally
recorded their primitive, lo-fi albums on a boom box with a few microphones
hooked up. Even when they brought their production up to speed with current
studio technology in 2004?s We Shall All
Be Healed, their sparse musical aesthetic remained. Heretic Pride, produced again by John Vanderslice, offers a bigger
shake-up, with orchestral strings bringing fuller, more rounded out
instrumentation to match Darnielle?s lyrical vision. At the same time, if the
album sees an expansion of The Mountain Goats? sound, it also features a
welcome return to Darnielle?s gifts at spinning narrative about other people after
his last three heavily autobiographical albums.

Darnielle’s
nasal voice has always resembled a more intense, barking version

of Colin
Meloy from the Decemberists. On 2006?s Get
Lonely, however, Darnielle?s voice became more subdued, losing a lot of his
songs? intrinsic power in the process. On Heretic
Pride, he?s managed to reconcile these disparate elements with ?San
Bernandino? featuring plucked guitar strings and warm cellos as Darnielle?s
voice keeps the listener?s attention.

The
Mountain Goats greatest strength, though, is in consistently delivering lyrics
both off-kilter and affecting ? and this is on full display in the album?s best song, ?Autoclave.? An
autoclave is used to sterilize laboratory equipment and medical supplies, and
in this anti-love song, Darnielle uses the autoclave to explain the emotional
state of his character: ?I am this great unstable mass of blood and foam/ And
no emotion that?s worth having would make my heart its home/ My heart?s an
autoclave.? Bouncing along with Young Marble Giants?esque muted guitar strings
and Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) providing an angelic harmony to Darnielle?s
improbably tuneful chorus, the song is destined for future covers and a
permanent spot in The Mountain Goats? repertoire.

Almost
as good is ?Lovecraft in Brooklyn,? a song with sharp drums and stabbing guitar
lines that offer more muscle for the track than any previous Mountain Goats
song. Singing from the perspective of horror author H.P. Lovecraft being thrown
into present-day New York City, Darnielle keeps his voice low and brooding and
intense until he explodes in the third verse: “Woke up afraid of my own
shadow/ Like, genuinely afraid/ Headed for the pawnshop to buy myself a
switchblade.?

Another
success is?Sept 15th 1983,? a retelling of the robbery and killing of reggae
producer Michael James ?Prince Far I? Williams. Giving a slight nod to reggae
with a sparse, percussion-focused arrangement and a syncopated, rhythm guitar,
Darnielle recounts the elegiac last moments of Williams? life elegy with such
calm ? and with such a buoyant keyboard behind him ? that it?s easy to miss the
murder entirely.

More
typical of Mountain Goats? traditional aesthetic of percussive, heavy strumming
and yelled vocals are ?In The Craters of the Moon? and the album?s title track,
the latter a prototypical Darnielle tale of nonchalant apocalypse, with the
smug narrator loudly proclaiming, ?I feel so proud when the reckoning arrives.?

Some of
the songs blend together too much, and the orchestra occasionally overwhelms
the material. And a few of the songs just don?t quite come together. ?New Zion?
has a modified riff taken from the Clash’s “Lost In The Supermarket”
and isn?t so hot when it?s paired with Steely Dan jazz, while ?Michael Myers
Resplendent? is unforgivably cloying, even if the pose is ironic.

Still,
the album rewards repeated listens, and although Heretic Pride doesn?t reach the high mark set by 2005?s The Sunset Tree, it still offers plenty
for Mountain Goats fans to sink their teeth into.

?

3 1/2 stars out of 5