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Avg: 4.0 (790 ratings)
- Date Released: April 26, 2005
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock
- Label: 4AD
John Darnielle’s guitar and his memories, delivering equal parts hope and despair.
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We Say...
John Darnielle has built a career on writing pointed vignettes about optimists, pessimists, romantics and miscreants but it turns out his most affecting story is his own. Turning to autobiography for the first time, Darnielle documents his terrible childhood with alarming focus. It's the immediacy that makes the record so affecting — in Darnielle's songs his stepfather's abuse and his own desperate attempts to escape from it aren't sealed off by memory but always happening in the present tense, making the wounds seem eternally fresh and open. He's dressed up the dry strum that defined his early cassette-recorded outings, but just barely — a piano plinks softly down the bridge of "Broom People" and a violin scrambles across the tense "Lion's Teeth." But mostly it's just Darnielle, his guitar and his memories, delivering equal parts hope and despair.
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They Say...
John Darnielle is a compulsive writer forever clutching his stomach as songs pour out uncontrollably into whatever recording device is in front of him. What sets him apart from other prolific artists in the indie rock world (Conor Oberst, Ryan Adams, Stephin Merritt) whose records and side projects can't keep up with the flow of their pens is his almost alarming gift for pairing quantity with quality. After dropping the devastating Tallahassee -- a record that followed in gory detail the imagined demise of a Florida couple's marriage -- in 2002, he turned his focus inward, taking an almost autobiographical stance on the follow-up, We Shall All Be Healed, a framework that is applied tenfold on the riveting The Sunset Tree. This is John Cougar Mellencamp's Scarecrow if it were set in southern California and narrated by Charles Bukowski. At the center is Darnielle's abusive stepfather, who slyly receives the album's dedication. He's a drunk, a misguided disciplinarian, and a lousy role model for the young artist who plies away his days in a haze of liquor-fueled misogyny, wistful romanticism, and good old-fashioned teen angst, always aware that each night will end in violence. Darnielle's talent for writing an engaging narrative is matched only by the succinctness of the music behind it. This is especially true on standout cuts like "This Year," a near-perfect snapshot of youthful defiance with its rousing, last-road-trip-ever refrain of "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me," and "Lion's Teeth," an uncomfortable moment of clarity that looks rage in both eyes without flinching, using a string-laden backbeat to up the suspense. Despite The Sunset Tree's white-knuckle subject matter and salt-in-the-wound imagery, it's surprisingly accessible. It's a gloves-off catharsis occurring in real time for the gifted singer/songwriter, and it leaves a mark on the listener as well.
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| 01. |  |
You Or Your Memory |
2:15 |
|
| 02. | |
Broom People |
2:44 |
|
| 03. | |
This Year |
3:52 |
|
| 04. | |
Dilaudid |
2:10 |
|
| 05. | |
Dance Music |
1:57 |
|
| 06. | |
Dinu Lipatti's Bones |
3:18 |
|
| 07. | |
Up The Wolves |
3:27 |
|
| 08. | |
Lion's Teeth |
3:25 |
|
| 09. | |
Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod |
3:22 |
|
| 10. | |
Magpie |
2:00 |
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| 11. | |
Song For Dennis Brown |
3:57 |
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| 12. | |
Love Love Love |
2:48 |
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| 13. | |
Pale Green Things |
4:19 |
|
13 Total Tracks, 39:34 Total Length
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Credits
- Erik Friedlander - Musician // Peter Hughes - Musician // John Vanderslice - Producer // John Vanderslice - Musician // The Mountain Goats - Main Performer // Vaughan Oliver - Art Direction // Vaughan Oliver - Design // Marco Atkins - Photography // Franklin Bruno - Musician // John Darnielle - Musician // Aaron Prellwitz - Assistant // Scott Solter - Engineer // Scott Solter - Engineer // Scott Solter - Musician // Scott Solter - Musician // Alex DeCarville - Musician // Timlin Murray - Assistant
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