Revisit of the Week: The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons (2019)
This week's random revisit isn't all that random; it's something I picked up from the shelf deliberately for a listen and then decided to turn it into this week's album to get back to (it is an album I'm going back to, it counts). Last Saturday I saw The Mountain Goats live for the first time and had an incredible night: Darnielle was a joy to witness live in all his incredible showmanship, the band were tight, the setlist full of surprises in the way that TMG setlists are and I really enjoy Albert Hall as a venue and we got great seats there (going back there again in December for Gang of Youths). Even the warm-up act was exciting, as it was another perennial Flint favourite Craig Finn. Anyway, after the concert there were two songs in particular that kept occupying my mind - "Younger" which had a special show centrepiece moment as it started out as the last song in Darnielle's solo intermission before the band walked back in halfway through to build the song up, and "Done Bleeding" which even in this set list of never knowing what you're going to get still managed to be a surprise. Both of those songs also happened to be from In League With Dragons.
I have a curious relationship with In League With Dragons and perhaps that's why I was so drawn to go back to it above any other album in the week after the gig. In 2019 I went through some surgery which was meant to have a quick recovery period quietly at home but which turned out to be a nightmare that left me spending many, many nights at a hospital. In League With Dragons was released shortly before all that happened and during those hospital evenings, I spent a lot of time listening to it over and over again. Part of it was that it was new and thus dipping into some strange territory was oddly easier than some old faves while I listened to music in the hospital bed in the evenings, but subconsciously I was maybe deliberately seeking to twist it into something meaningful to hold onto while worried and in pain. That didn't really happen and I'd find my Real Recovery Record a month later when I finally returned to home properly, but I was left with an oddly eery association with In League With Dragons anyway. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it in the end and I think I ended up underrating it as the year advanced.
In hindsight, I think this is one of Darnielle's most mystical and captivating records, maybe?
In League With Dragons marks the epic finale of the phase of elaborately conceptual (even for Darnielle standards), lushly arranged albums that The Mountain Goats spent their late 2010s with. This was a period of the band expanding beyond their usual scope of largely sticking with straightforward band pieces and Darnielle solo moments; more keyboards, more strings, and more elaborate song structures which gave space to more widescreen instrumental sections and unexpected segments. In League With Dragons brings in Owen Pallett to produce and to do a bunch of string and horn arrangements across the record, and where those are absent there's still always something else going on, whether that's vocal harmonies, songs surrounded by cavernous space around them or quirkier synthesizer parts which straddle the line between 80s arena rock and moody dungeon synth. The elaborate concept is a little haphazard as the album started as a conceptual rock opera piece inspired by DnD and other fantasy fare, but eventually stretched beyond those constraints as Darnielle found the original idea a little limiting in scope; but even with that, you're still left with an album which frequently breaks into very intriguing, elaborate prose referencing more magical and arcane affairs, sung with Darnielle's usual earnest conviction. Together these elements come together to create something really enchantingly atmospheric. It's the kind of record that comes to life the best when you're sitting down in a dimmed room with your headphones on, and letting the music come to life in that intimate setting as your mind races to create vivid images to match the tapestries the songs are weaving.
There's something really uniquely bold and beautiful in In League With Dragons and it's taken a while for me to really realise it. Even if I haven't been actively listening to this album since 2019, songs from it have appeared in my life and found little niches and trenches to occupy: "Cadaver Sniffing Dog" has been a perennial Flint favourite for ages (it ended up in my 2019 mixtape), I had such a vivid realisation how mighty "Possum by Night" that I remember the very stretch of road when it appeared in my library shuffle and left me with goosebumps, and the sustained build-up and tension of "Younger" is a gift that's kept on giving. But this past week I've heard these songs in an entirely different light, and discovered how damn near everything else on this album matches suite. I've pulled through whatever odd distance was between me and this album, and though it's only just started to reveal how radiant it actually is I already feel like we're close friends. It's almost sad to 'let this go' ahead of another weekly revisit... but I might sneakily continue returning to this anyway.
And, it gives me the full right to admit that the trilogy of Beat the Champ (2015), Goths (2017) and this might just be one of personally closest, favourite stretches of albums Darnielle has released in his long and exciting career.
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