Band: The Mountain Goats and John Vanderslice
Album: Moon Colony Bloodbath
Best song: “Scorpio Rising”
Worst song: “Emerging” has a lot of things I hate about the Mountain Goats.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of concept albums; I love the format of using music as a storytelling device or to explore a theme. The only perfect piece of art is a concept album and it could be argued that my favorite recent album is one, too. Continue reading
Band: John Vanderslice
Album: Romanian Names
Best song: “C&O Canal” is lovely.
Worst song: The title track is mediocre.
John Vanderslice has been around for a while and has never touched anything but the outlying islands of popular culture. His first few records had some niche interest — “Bill Gates Must Die” was a fun record of almost protest singalong-ness — and his earnestness is laudatory. But, ultimately, the playing field on which he resides is populated by, let’s face it, better artists.
The breakthrough of Justin Vernon was a happy accident in that it coincided with Vanderslice’s calming down. While his earlier records involved more interesting production and voices/character songs, Romanian Names is a bit more of a navel-gazer. It’s soft and easy, lacking the outsized nature of his earlier records.
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