Mountain Goats | Beat the Champ [ALBUM REVIEW]

The Mountain Goats had a good thing going. They had the hearts and minds of all of the liberal arts majors that were too smart for Mumford and Sons. They could have gone to a cabin in Montana and recorded generic introspective indie trash, and we all would have eaten it up. So releasing a concept album about pro wrestling took some major stones. Wrestling is theatre, and maybe that’s why a few of the songs on the album sound like tunes from a Broadway show. But despite the silliness, The Mountain Goats get at something truly human on this record, whether through the woodwinds on “Southwest Territory” or the brushed drums on “Fire Editorial.” There are some misses, though. “Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan” goes for a Drive-By Truckers-style spoken word vibe that never feels natural, and “Foreign Object” sounds a little too much like a They Might Be Giants B-side. But on the whole, this album is something special. Maybe the WWE can ink a deal with The Mountain Goats to help promote their failing WWE network service to the hipster crowd, because given this record, they’d be great ambassadors for the brand.

The Mountain Goats, Beat The Champ is out now and available on iTunes via Merge Records.

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