Bleating the blues

John Darnielle’s project The Mountain Goats has been around since the early ’90s and has churned out a constant flow of records since its beginning. Heretic Pride marks its 15th release, and it’s not a far departure from what they do best: simplistic folk-rock that’s lo-fi but high quality, with emotionally driven, smart lyrics.
Heretic Pride is a solid acoustic rock album, but one of the biggest faux pas an artist could do is create the same work of art twice. Unfortunately, that’s just the case here; many songs on this album repeat themselves, messages repeat themselves and guitar riffs repeat themselves. Listen to the first five seconds of “Sax Rohmer #1,” “Autoclave,” “In the Craters on the Moon” and “How To Embrace a Swamp Creature,” and you’ll hear the exact same guitar rhythm that continues through the majority of the song. One of these four would’ve sufficed.
“Sax” is still a darn good song. The lyrics are outright picturesque and create vivid scenes, while the music serves as the score for a movie.
“San Bernadino” is a step removed from “Sax.” Its guitar, violin and vocals all blended into a cheery mix. This song accomplishes exactly what it needs to, giving a descriptive account of travel. From early morning to late at night, the lyrics describe the emotions and motions of traveling. The guitar even lends itself to sounding like all the little yellow lines in the middle of the road passing by.
“Lovecraft in Brooklyn,” sort of like sub-par poetry set to music, is descriptive but somewhat unoriginal. It’s also one of the more rocking songs on the album and at a little more than the mid-point, there’s some interesting guitar work and violin swells.
“Marduk T-Shirt Men’s Room Incident” is a little more introspective and melancholy than any of the other songs on Heretic Pride. Female voices provide backup vocals in the chorus, which mix well with the mood. The chorus itself says to “stay weightless, formless, blameless and nameless” which is something The Mountain Goats won’t do.