Artist: The Mountain Goats Year Released: 2012 Get This Album

John Darnielle is still writing pointed but empathetic lyrics about people who are lying in the gutter and aren’t sure where the stars went. He keeps expanding the sound around them, though: this time, the Mountain Goats have added a horn section that throws Darnielle’s tart bray into sharper relief. Transcendental Youth is a grim, grim album — most of the characters are barely clinging to life and sanity. When the horns radiate around Darnielle’s voice on the title track as he sings about a vision of ascending heavenward “on air gone black with flies,” it’s a moment of glory and terror.

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