All Eternals Deck

Following the period of uncharacteristic self-revelation that resulted in the autobiographical We Shall All Be Healed and The Sunset Tree, John Darnielle began returning to the knotty fictions and obscure historical/cultural references of the early Mountain Goats albums. But the three albums that followed seemed oddly patchy and tentative, as Darnielle settled into working with a consistent backing band for the first time in his career. Bassist Peter Hughes and drummer Jon Wurster are at last so entrenched as Mountain Goats that they appear with Darnielle in press photos, and on their first LP for Merge Records (following a six-album stint on 4AD), there's a real sense of a middle ground between the middle-aged emo of The Sunset Tree and the yelping attack and impenetrable metaphors of Darnielle's early solo efforts. The elegant packaging lays out the album's central conceit of a tarot card deck through oblique phrases over mysterious black-and-white photos, capped with a Wikipedia-like entry on the (fictional) deck's unexplained provenance. Musically, the album regains the energetic, almost aggressive attack that was largely missing from the band's recent work, best heard on the breakneck "Estate Sale Sign" and the impassioned opener "Damn These Vampires," both among the finest and most fully-realized songs in the Mountain Goats' impressive catalogue. Following a period of musical retrenchment that happened to coincide with a steadily-increasing public profile, All Eternals Deck has the unmistakable sound of a band hitting a new creative peak.