One of my indie marks of shame growing up was that I went to college in Denton, Texas, yet never truly listened to The Mountain Goats (and missed out on many hometown shows) out of a fear that I never "got" their music. Coming back a decade later, I understand why the younger version of myself struggled – this is a narrative LP through and through, the only things guiding the listener through a threadbare acoustic and Darnielle's monotone storytelling. Maybe it's my age, maybe it's the fact I left my home state behind a long time ago, but listening back to these intimate corners of life set in familiar locales finally hit home. The consistent minimal lo-fi instrumentation does threaten to wear a bit thin in the middle, but the genuine nature and slightly sardonic lens we're given to look through at these human situations carries the LP enough to make it to the finish line. This is the highest I've rated a singer-songwriter LP by far (it's one of my least favorite genres instrumentally), and I'm definitely giving this bonus cred due to my Texas pride, but I cannot deny how well-composed and real this album feels.
All Hail West Texas
The Mountain Goats
2002
- Album Summary
This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.
All Hail West Texas is the sixth studio album by the Mountain Goats. After the slight increase in production values on The Coroner's Gambit album of 2000, All Hail West Texas was the last Mountain Goats album recorded entirely on John Darnielle's trademark Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox until 2020's Songs for Pierre Chuvin. Similarly, it marked the end of an era for the band, as it was the last album by the Mountain Goats to feature only John Darnielle until 2020. The cover advertises that the album consists of "fourteen songs about seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys." Several songs were written to appear on the record that were not included in its final version. Three were given away on the Tiny Mix Tapes website ("Song for God," "Warm Lonely Planet," and "Waco"). Darnielle said there was a full set of fifteen outtakes that he intended to release for free one day, but he destroyed them after hearing about the leak of Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg. It is not known whether that set included the three listed above. In May 2013, Darnielle announced that Merge Records would reissue All Hail West Texas on July 23 of that year, on vinyl for the first time. The announcement included a link to an explanatory essay by Matt Fraction.[7] The reissue includes remastered versions of the original recordings, seven previously unreleased tracks contemporary to the original album, and a new 1,800-word essay by Darnielle about the album and his writing process.
Reviews
Like a review? Give it a thumb up to help us display relevant reviews!I'm all about Mr. John Darnielle, going way back to the mid 90s - though with the common caveat that I'm not that cool, this is another one I was introduced to by my brother. Saw him perform in a tiny bar venue in Uptown Minneapolis around '95, '96 (with Rachel Ware on bass) and just a couple years ago with the band, packing the First Avenue mainroom with an impressively cross-generational crowd from Z to X and probably a few Boomers in the mix. The home recording on the early stuff has its charms though it is ultimately limited, and as a musician at that point his playing served its purpose but was nothing to write essays about, but as a lyricist in the modern idiom he has few peers in my opinion.
5 4
Not the Mountain Goats album I'd have added to the list, but they're always so good.
Don't usually go for such clever lyrics, but this feels like it's coming from an honest place, rather than simply trying to impress. Perhaps it's the lo fi sound that lends it that credibility.
Lo-fi does not seem to be something I like
Rating: 6/10
This was alright, but it could have been so much better. I'm not opposed to a DIY/home recording approach (Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen is one of my favorite albums) but this didn't work that well for me. It just comes across as being slightly pretentious and overly clever. Still giving it 3 stars, because at the core the songs are solid.
This has grown on me since I listened to it. At first I was rolling my eyes at the shitty sound quality and the rest of the production and vocals but the more I think about it the more I think it fits the lyrics and overall vibe they're going for. As someone from Nebraska, it captures the feeling of growing up in a small rural area pretty well even if I didn't relate the exact things they were singing about.
One of the songs stole a vocal melody from a NOFX song, but it was fleeting and mostly I just hated this. Lame Americana themes, vibe calls to brisket festivals and big moustaches/belt buckles - ironically, of course. And no doubt most of these guys' fans would shudder at those darkthrone albums recorded using a similar attention to detail RE equipment. 2/5.
One of the roughest albums I've ever heard. Cursory research has revealed that the album was recorded directly into a cassette boom box, and I can't fathom why. The songs seem to do a lot of meandering in the lyrics. Mildly curious to listen to one of the albums with a full band instead of one man and a boom box.
I'm bored out of my mind, how can they classify this as Rock on the record? Even their best tracks don't work for me...next.