Heretic Pride
- The Mountain Goats
- Band Name: The Mountain Goats
- Record Label: 4AD
- Release Date: Feb 19, 2008
- Critic Score
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One day, Darnielle might make a sub-par Mountain Goats record. Pride certainly isn't it. [Apr 2008, p.152]
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It all adds up to The Mountain Goats' most musically sophisticated endeavor to date. In fact, the music is finally beginning to hold its own with the lyrics.
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90Disjointed maybe, obtuse certainly, but listening to this album is continuously rewarding, new images, new storylines, and new moments of disbelief at Darnielle's lyricism on every listen.
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This is not just music that I believe, in the sense that it is credible, but this is music to believe in.
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83Bolstered by the sound of a full band, with Heretic Pride Darnielle has created one of his best releases yet.
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One wonders whether 4AD has thrown his critical followers off with its line about how this one abandons autobiography for "mythical creatures" etc.
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It's the crafting of timeless, crest-fallen melodies infused with gripping characterisations that elevates Darnielle into the upper-crust of musical virtuosity. And that's exactly where Heretic Pride leaves him: perched atop the pile of today's try-hardy singer/songwriters.
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80Darnielle's characters are back where they know best.
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Darnielle can sometimes be too clever, loading in more than a song can bear, but he keeps that tendency in check for the most part on Heretic Pride, and the result is a wonderfully accessible and varied album that hits all the right buttons at all the right times.
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80These succinct, sparse vignettes could double as short stories, Darnielle's evocative imagery giving the likes of 'San Bernardino' a cinematic feel. [Mar 2008, p.108]
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80This batch of tunes is still suffused with the confessional vibe that made "The Sunset Tree" and "Get Lonely" unlikely emo-folk touchstones. [Mar 2008, p.98]
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80Anyone who has surmounted that hurdle will be delighted to discover that the album represents business as usual: 13 absorbing songs, sparingly orchestrated to concentrate attention on the lyrics.
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Complex and worth repeated listens? Hell yeah.
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80Heretic Pride is a stunning, well-rounded piece of music that only The Mountain Goats could pull off.
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80Pretty much all John Darnielle's songs sound the same, but that sameness affords a remarkable consistency.
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80Where Heretic Pride succeeds is in variety. We never see the same mania twice, never repeat the same angle.
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Heretic Pride lifts those shadows--it's the most optimistic Mountain Goats record yet. It's uplifting and soulful, genuine and sophisticated--full of tender moments enhanced by remarkably pretty melodies and arrangements.
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While the cellos of 'San Bernardino' are sublime, many of Heretic's opaque lyrics are buried under prettified blandness. [29 Feb 2008, p.61]
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While he looses some duds ("New Zion," "So Desperate," and "How to Embrace a Swamp Creature" are skippable) and a set of slightly duller lyrics, the conceits of the songs-the central images of good floundering in an evil world, of contented monsters, of the naiveté of the faithful-serve to substantiate the album as a whole more than any one line, verse, or song does.
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This is business as usual: string-laced Americana that ranks alongside other literate types such as The Shins or Midlake.
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Darnielle's increasing love of full band arrangements--which aren't memorable--pushes him perilously close to earning the "soft rock' label. [Winter 2008, p.83]
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60Darnielle dresses songs of romance, heartache, and travel in elegant leaps of language. [Mar 2008, p.96]
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60With drums, strings, pianos, amps and backup singers, this is the biggest sounding record ever for a band that used to consist of one guy on acoustic guitar. [Apr 2008, p.81]
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60The music often verges on innocuous, but it serves its purpose as a backdrop for Darnielle's steadily churning imagination.
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As interesting as Heretic Pride already is, it misses an opportunity to pick one direction or the other.
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Without the gripping autobiographical elements of recent Mountain Goats releases (or the tape hiss of the band's lo-fi days) to justify them, Darnielle's idiosyncratic, occasionally annoying vocals and elementary folk melodies fall a little flat.
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52While there's magic in Darnielle's always-blissful eye for detail--takes the kaleidoscopic, blood-red sun on 'San Bernadino'--far too often the album works up a head of steam only to wander into unflattering territory. [Winter 2008, p.95]
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The lack of the sort of overarching theme that powered previous discography standouts 'Tallahassee' and 'The Sunset Tree' through their dull bits means that these moments rob the record of a lot of momentum and goodwill.
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40The polished arrangements of Heretic Pride do Darnielle's songwriting no favours. [Mar 2008, p.106]
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 6
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Mixed: 0 out of 6
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Negative: 0 out of 6
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SteveO.8Cool voice but it CAN get a little annoying... good songwriters though... its a good album overall.
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MichaelE.10
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JackB.9break away from the personal and back toward classic outward storytelling.