RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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Album reviews
Latest releases from The Mountain Goats, Eboni Band and LUMP
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
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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