- Audio CD (April 26 2005)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Select Distributions
- ASIN: B0007W22IE
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#11,189 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
- #38 in Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Lo-Fi
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Track Listings
| 1. You Or Your Memory |
| 2. Broom People |
| 3. This Year |
| 4. Dilaudid |
| 5. Dance Music |
| 6. Dinu Lipatti's Bones |
| 7. Up The Wolves |
| 8. Lion's Teeth |
| 9. Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod |
| 10. Magpie |
| 11. Song For Dennis Brown |
| 12. Love Love Love |
| 13. Pale Green Things |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
There has always been something about John Darnielle’s lyrics; even when you’re not exactly sure what he’s talking about, it always feels like he’s telling it like it is. Not that metaphor is a major player on The Sunset Tree, the latest album from the Mountain Goats (of which Darnielle is the founder, frontman, and once only member.) Songs like "This Year," "Dance Music," and "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?" are painfully honest about his traumatic childhood and abusive stepfather. You might think that an album about child abuse would be hard to listen to, but as always, hearing Darnielle's lyrics is an honor and a privilege. Trying experiences are captured with deceptively simple statements (is there any better expression of determination than "I will make it through this year if it kills me"?) On this CD, Darnielle also remembers revered (yet cocaine-addled) reggae star Dennis Brown. ("It took all the coke in town to bring down Dennis Brown. On the day my lung collapses, we’ll see just how much it takes.") Though the Mountain Goats have apparently done well enough for Darnielle to quit his day job as a nurse, they don't yet have all the fans they deserve. Don't wait to join the fold. --Leah Weathersby
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Sunset Tree,
This review is from: Sunset Tree (Audio CD)
A mid-year album-of-the-year contender from Lo-Fi indie rockers The Mountain Goats, 'The Sunset Tree' is the best collection of tunes lead singer and guitarist John Darnielle has never recorded on his boom box.Thirteen short songs (the longest being sightly more than four minutes), all done in a sparse, slightly rough manner, with imaginative lyrics and neatly varied music, make up the album. A loose animal theme keeps things together. The sudden realization that the album's crammed with great moments raises it. And Darnielle's personal imprint (songwriting, voice, instrument, emotion and storytelling) elevates it to the level of a must-listen. Heck, it's a pretty affecting album, too. Not in an overly sentimental manner, either, but in an unexpected and disarming way. And at a time when it seems that every new fab band is being compared to some other, older, better band, it's nice to be able to answer the ever-so-horrible "who do they sound like?" question with: "They sound like the friggin' Mountain Goats."
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews) 17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best disc of 2005,
By M. Emrich "embo55" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sunset Tree (Audio CD)
I consider this the best release of the year, which is all the more surprising since I am not particularly fond of the Mountain Goats previous work. John Darnielle has written far and away the best lyrics of any disc this year. The tunes are not always up to the stories, but the images his songs present and the emotions they evoke are phenomenal. John Darnielle does not have a particularly great voice either, in fact some may find it almost grating, but he has the best delivery I have ever heard. "This Year' is the standout song on the disc. Never has a song presented the feeling of being a disillusioned teen so well. The chorus "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me." will resound in your ears. It is a song that the worst of us singers want to scream along with as it blasts out of our car radios. "locking eyes, holding hands twin high maintenance machines." I love that line. "The scene ends badly as you might imagine in a cavalcade of anger and fear." Is followed by "There will be feasting and dancing in Jeruselum next year." He Juxtaposes images of dread with hope. It's brilliant stuff. Some of his images are admittedly difficult to grasp. But there is hope amidst despair throughout this brilliant tale. Old fans may find this disc overproduced, but i heartily disagree. Every string and keyboard is gorgeous. Check out the strings on "Dilaudid". They evoke the feeling of a deep despair and self destruction like a simpler production could never achieve. Enough said. If you have not yet heard this disc buy it now.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
simply perfect,
By Hanna Eastin "clay artist" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sunset Tree (Audio CD)
I bought The Sunset Tree a week ago, sight unseen and note unheard. I listened to my other purchases first, since I was relatively familiar with them and knew what I was getting. Then I peeled off the celophane and popped in The Sunset Tree. No idea what to expect... I thought, upon the first notes of You or Your Memory, 'my god what an awful nasal voice'... then- 'oh.' Then lying on the floor watching the ceiling fan turn thinking, 'this is the most perfect album. There is no other way for this to be.' I am a self-employed artist and listen to music all day, and into the evening, as I work. This cd makes it hard to go to bed at night. It would almost be better to just sit still by the stereo and listen, over and over again, to this quiet steel masterpiece. I can't say enough, but it would be too much. Just buy this, and save yourself an afternoon or two or three, to really listen to it.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Up From Pain,
By James Carragher - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Sunset Tree (Audio CD)
Mountain Goats is basically one man, John Darnielle, a superb lyricist and a singer whose voice sounds both sandpapery and tentative. He sings here of life with an abusive stepfather, a subject not exactly made for easy listening, but The Sunset Tree, a humane and sympathetic freeing from a sad past, is not bitter, achieves strength and -- particularly in Song for Dennis Brown -- addresses some universal and inescapable experiences.This might sound like dreary medicine to take, but instead it's good and almost pleasant listening. There is a cheerful, pop edge to some of the music, most notably in Dance Music and This Year. A greater reason, though, is Darnielle's own storytelling -- his stepfather sounds like a monster, but he is not denied his own humanity ("you are sleeping off your demons") and Darnielle even manages -- on hearing of the man's death -- to recall a fragile good memory, going together in an early morning years previously to watch horses work out. It helps too that in this history Darnielle recogizes his own teenaged self as not exactly perfect, describing himself and a girlfriend as "twin high-maintenance machines." In its unflinching look at and ultimate release from past pain, The Sunset Tree was one of the best albums of 2005. It's ambitious, mature, realized, and -- not least -- tuneful. Buy it. |
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Indie Rock
- Music > Alternative Rock > Indie & Lo-Fi > Lo-Fi
- Music > Pop
- Music > Rock
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
