All Hail West Texas (studio album) by The Mountain Goats

While I actually love the minimalist no-frills approach that this album takes with its production, I think that the songwriting itself only shines on a handful of tracks. Melody crafting seems secondary to lyrical rambling, occasionally to a sickening degree. I generally enjoyed it, I just wish it was catchier; or, conversely, more thought-provoking.

Each song is a perfect little story with such great details that you feel like you witnessed it or lived it yourself. The world that these stories create linked together is such an amazing portrait of a time and place.

Hail Satan!

From Cargusbralem 02/21/2019 05:09

Damn, if you listen to Neutral Milk Hotel or The Velvet Underground & Nico after this, they seem like top notch modern pop production audio quality in comparison.

Joking aside, I enjoyed this quite a lot. Low-Fi to its truest level possible. Sweet melodic guitar chords accompany very captivating story telling, and you don't need anything else. That's the beauty that this album holds. However, upon reaching the last few tracks, the style does get a little worn out.

From Onater 01/11/2018 16:39

One of those albums that you will feel nostalgic about even if you've never heard it before.

From Komorebi-D 03/19/2017 11:03

Considering that this a strictly lo-fi piece you can't help but admire its enormity. So much confessed, so many stories told.

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Lo-Fi, folk comfort food. Mm...Food.

From rayword45 07/31/2013 15:49

This album is proof of Darnielle's lyrical talent. With extremely poor sound quality, simple song structures, a voice that won't appeal to all and a mess of a concept, the album still stands up as completely amazing due almost entirely in part to the lyrics.

Personal thought only, but with the increase in fidelity and complexity of song structure (probably also including an improvement in vocal perfomance) in later albums, a great deal of intimacy was lost.