Every Mountain Goats fan has his or her personal favorite record, song, live performance. John Darnielle inspires an intense fandom—his audience often feels his songs are as much theirs as they are his. On top of that, whenever it feels like Darnielle has grown a little stale—MG’s last two albums, “Get Lonely” and “Heretic Pride,” were only so-so—he pulls a fast one on us. “The Life of the World to Come,” released last month, is a heartbreaking and masterful work, and features Darnielle writing songs based on verses of the Bible. The successful songwriter manages to make the record religious in theme but not really in nature, personalizing—there’s that “personal” term again—the widely universal. On top of that, Darnielle also at times shifts from his trademark acoustic guitar and takes up the piano, which adds (or subtracts) and creates a sad sparseness on “The Life of the World…” that’s been absent from MG material since the cassette days. Truly wonderful stuff by an infinitely gifted songwriter. (Tom Lynch)
The Mountain Goats play November 5 at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, (773)549-0203, at 9pm. $20.
Cooling It: A Preview of Colleen Green at Cole’s Bar When Green strums power chords or chiming notes on top of her backing track, you might think you’re at Ramones karaoke night and Madonna is taking her turn.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
For “Want” of a Change: A Preview of Rufus Wainwright at Ravinia Park Rufus Wainwright isn’t the first singer-songwriter to reinterpret earlier work through an orchestral lens. And much of Wainwright’s third and fourth albums, “Want One” and “Want Two”—whose twentieth anniversaries are the prompt for this new tour—is fully scored. But when Wainwright hits the Pavilion stage at Ravinia tonight, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be behind him.
