I like the Mountain Goats mostly, though I only really ever listened to their early stuff, and We Shall All Be Healed, which evokes a sunny day in Nottingham to this day.
Its usually a bad sign when I have to keep stopping an album and coming back to it. Problem the first, John Darnielle's reedy, nasal singing seems even more thin and annoying than ever here. Problem the second, the music is fairly repetitive and mostly uninteresting, the main focus obviously being the Bright Eyes-via-The-Decemberists mellodramatic micro-epics. Which leads me to problem the third. Fuck, this is dark, relating relentlessly depressing imagery and concepts, veering past Okkervil River and on into Why? territory (though stopping well short of Xiu Xiu Land).
I read some review that suggested that Darnielle's bouncy delivery saved this album from bleak oblivion, but I don't see it. Mostly, the disconnect results in uncomfortable songs that jaunt like toddlers to cliffsides.
By the time it was over, I was glad it was over, and not in a good way. Previous Mountain Goats albums took us on harrowing, personal journeys, leaving us feeling like we had lived through something through someone else's eyes. But we came out the other side. All Eternals Deck just builds a wasteland, drives us into it and leaves us there. What is tragedy without protagonist, without movement? Maybe its art, but its not what I look for in music 2/5
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