sometimes when you’re a teenage “boy” gender dysphoria will express itself in profound fascination and jealousy for the tights and powdered wigs and tricorner hats and elegant waistcoat era of western men’s fashion. it happened to me

satanic messiah save me

love this from the recent gq profile of jd

looking at my personal streaming stats for mountain goats albums and surprised to find sweden at the top by a lot. if you asked me to name my fave mountain goats albums off the top of my head, i’d instantly gravitate to beat the champ, coroner’s gambit, all hail west texas, transcendental youth, full force galesburg—not in any particular order, but all those i’d probably think to list before sweden. and yet i listen to sweden most.

so i listen to sweden again to see what i seem to subconsciously love about it so much. and people, i just feel like i have to reemphasize that sweden slaps. it’s absurd how much it slaps. it describes love, absence of love, desire for love, loss of love—in such a hungry, raw, poignantly desperate and lonely way. how can you just Start an album with “the recognition scene”? “hot caramel sticking to our teeth, and the only love i’ve ever known, burning underneath. i’m gonna miss you when you’re gone.” fuck….! right?

later you’ve got “i wonder where our love has gone”—i love the despair. i love alluding to tiresias the blind sex-changing prophet of greek mythology in the sample (the whole album is canonically transgender because of this). i love how desperate the narrator is. i love the energy of that guitar.

and then comes “deianara crush,” which is so sweet, and poor hercules (“that’s something i’d rather not be reminded of”—relatable), and “you hold my head in your hands, you say my name. HOW IS IT THAT THOUGH YOU SAY IT SOME TWENTY-THOUSAND TIMES, IT’S NEVER QUITE THE SAME?”

flashing lights is 10/10. “i am watching the way the wind seems to pass straight through your body… you say you’re as good as gone—well don’t look now cuz here comes the dawn. empty promises” god. it’s such a lonely song. lonely with company. for now. peaceful tune, and terrifying.

“sept 16 triple x love! love!”: that whole first verse is so descriptive and immersive, and jd’s voice plays the emotion of the verse so well. “i will do as i am told: i will keep away the cold.” it’s a song that really gets me thinking and having feelings.

going to queens is so sweet and nostalgic to me. tahitian ambrosia maker—as an actual bipolar person i would describe this song as having a “hypomanic but in a kinda fun way for now” vibe. going to bolivia’s sample is so funny i can’t believe it. “it is the only appliance that grinds the grain into flour and kneads the dough in the same container.” i love that So. Much. idk if my sense of humor is broken.

“send me an angel” is so magnificently tense. california song is a catchy bop that is relatable in a sad way. “snow crush killing song” is tragic.

neon orange glimmer song: “i am a monster. i can’t believe the thing i’ve done”—me when i do anything fucked up.

FM—jd says the f-word in this song.

“prana ferox” also has a legendary sample. “you wake up in the morning feeling gloriously alive, with the firm conviction that the problems that disturbed you in the past will disappear, disappear into the midnight of your consciousness.”—words i live by.

and finally cold milk bottle: “you’re mean to me. why must you be mean to me?”

anyway. yeah, sweden deserves its place at the top for me personally.

through this fire across from peter balkan: i really like this album!! it’s got religious language and despair and hope and a long unwieldy title. and john darnielle singing and rhyming and testing himself at grand new things with music and storytelling. god! something about it just sounds so richhhhh, and the lyrics as well—i can already tell i’m going to be swimming in them for weeks as i listen more, keeping and pondering them in my heart. so glad to have this music and these musicians :D

do you guys think that the mountain goats might release a new album soon?

guy who lives in a web: “yeah, i grew up with spiders so i guess it’s just sorta normal to me. yeah my mother was an arachnid and she birthed me a regular human man in an egg sac with thousands of my spider sisters. who i grew up with. dad was never around. so you could say i’ve always been surrounded with spiders. yeah i can’t really eat solid foods sorry : / (i grew up with spiders.) yeah sorry if me walking like this freaks you out like i said i grew up with spiders”