brian

Artist: Mountain Goats

Album: Transcendental Youth

John Darnielle (who alone or accompanied is the Mountain Goats) is my favorite folk songwriter of the current century, releasing a good-to-great new album every year and a half. He was an excellent lyricist as far back as the 1990s, declaiming away in a reedy voice over a hundred scratchy-sounding voice-and-guitar variants on the John Darnielle Fast Song and the John Darnielle Slow Song (Now With New Words ); kudos to you […]

Artist: Jon Lindsay

Album: Summer Wilderness Program

Jon Lindsay makes power-pop music, a la the definition I started my Jukebox the Ghost review with. Where Jukebox the Ghost’s tunes remind me of young, flamboyant Elton John, Jon Lindsay — a smooth, graceful singer, and an imaginative user of synthesizers and percussion as well as pianos, strummed guitars, and violins — reminds me more of the occasional They Might Be Giants songs where they prove they could be a […]