Bleed Out (Double Gatefold LP)

Bleed Out is a cinematic experience unto itself. One song about preparing to exact bloody revenge begat another song about the act of exacting bloody revenge and then more songs about the causes and the aftermath of being driven to exact bloody revenge, each delivered with the urgency and desperation deserving of their narrators and circumstances. Running narrative themes are not new to Mountain Goats projects, especially in recent years, be it the pro wrestlers of 2015's Beat The Champ or the goths of 2017's Goths. Darnielle was drawn to the antiheroes of the hardboiled action flicks he was bingeing, particularly the ways in which their quests for justice were almost all inevitably doomed.

Bleed Out could be all one movie, from the opening training montage to the demise in the elegiac closing title track. Songs like 'Make You Suffer', 'First Blood', 'Hostages', and 'Need More Bandages' do what they say on the tin, telling typically vivid, deliberately recognisable vignettes of desperate characters in no-win situations who plan on taking as many people down with them as they have to. But Darnielle sees these as unconnected stories that feel universal in their desire for justice, if not in their wanton bloodshed. Anthems don't get more straightforward or anthem-y than 'Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome', tapping into an anger that's easy to reach in 2022, even if the solutions aren't.