WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Album reviews
Latest releases from The Mountain Goats, Eboni Band and LUMP
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
The Mountain Goats
Dark In Here
(Merge Records)
⭑⭑⭑
IT TURNS out that immediately after recording their superb 2020 album Getting Into Knives in Memphis, US indie outfit The Mountain Goats shifted to Muscle Shoals in Alabama to make the impressive Dark In Here.
This shouldn’t be surprising — the band is led by prolific singer-songwriter John Darnielle, who has nurtured a dedicated fan base by releasing literate and distinctive records since the early 1990s.
Bassist Peter Hughes describes the two albums as yin and yang, with Dark In Here more downbeat, quieter and intense. The Slow Parts On Death Metal Albums is an expansive autobiographical track about going to metal shows in the late 1980s, while Arguing With The Ghost Of Peter Laughner About His Coney Island Baby Review — Darnielle picks some brilliant and very long song titles — is a tribute to the late, great David Berman.
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