You may not know it yet, but you love this album. At least you will. As you would expect from a Mountain Goats record, Get Lonely is peppered with Darnielle's astute lyrical observations and empathetic characters, and this album further enhances his reputation as one of the best lyricists around at the moment.
Like 2005's The Sunset Tree, this is an album that manages to be simultaneously profoundly sad and uplifting. You see, Darnielle has only really one subject for the album, and that is love. Or rather, losing love. Luckily it never gets dull, because no one can write songs about this subject like The Mountain Goats.
Whether it's documenting the strangeness of the end of a relationship in Woke Up New (“the first time I made coffee just for myself / I made too much of it / But I drank it all just 'cause you hate it / When I let things go to waste”) or clearing up a partner's belongings after they have left in Half Dead (“Try not to get caught up / Try to think like a machine / Focus in on the task / Try not to think about what it means”), The Mountain Goats can make beautiful songs from the smallest moments.
Get Lonely is a quiet and intimate record, consisting mostly of a strummed acoustic guitar and Darnielle's hushed quiver. Occasionally you make out a bass low in the mix, a lightly accented electric guitar, a piano, or lightly brushed drums. Some of the songs (like Get Lonely and the aching Moon Over Goldsboro) are supplemented by some quite subtle string arrangements. But that's about all. You might think such a record would sound samey, but this is not the case, even if musically it does not try to reach as far as previous albums The Sunset Tree or We Shall All Be Healed.
This is the fourth sort-of-but-not-really concept album that The Mountain Goats have released since signing for a bigger label, and like it's predecessors Tallahasee, We Shall All Be Healed and The Sunset Tree, Get Lonely does not disappoint.
I've heard people say their older albums - many recorded into an old boombox and often distributed on tape – are better than their new ones, and to be honest I wouldn't know, as I have only heard the last four albums by The Mountain Goats. But I do know this: Get Lonely is quite simply a magnificent record.
You will love it. Trust me.
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