Wednesday, March 14   11:00 p.m.
Emo's Main Room   (603 Red River St)

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Last year, The Mountain Goats released an album called The Sunset Tree, and something unusual happened. John Darnielle - long recognised by his fans as one of the most imaginative and downright thrilling lyricists of his generation - suddenly found the rest of the world starting to think the same way. The album, the most nakedly autobiographical in a Mountain Goats discography which spans 400 or more songs across scores of releases, was widely hailed as a masterpiece; it went on to become the most successful of Darnielle�s career.
But - as you might expect from a songwriter as creatively restless as he is prolific - Get Lonely is something else again. If The Sunset Tree (which chronicled the fraught, violent relationship between Darnielle and his stepfather) derived its power and energy from an unblinking exorcism of personal demons, Get Lonely is perhaps the quiet, haunted aftermath. It�s a reflective, intimate record; the mood is one of bittersweet resignation rather than cathartic release. And it sees Darnielle modulating his perspective away from the unequivocally personal � these elegiac vignettes undoubtedly spring from emotion deeply felt, but emotion this time � as the poet once had it � �recollected in tranquillity�.
And given Darnielle�s gift for telling irony, it might not come as surprise to discover that, at least as far as the musical performances are concerned, Get Lonely doesn�t quite follow the stark command of its title. In fact, these recordings are warmly collaborative affairs, with Darnielle and his long-term collaborators Peter Hughes and Franklin Bruno forming an ensemble captured playing live in the studio - the songs murmur with surefooted confidence, the product of intuitive, respectful mutual exploration.
Their performances are augmented by the luminous cello playing of Erik Freidlander, the lithe, almost-jazz drumming of Corey Fogel and the multifarious instrumental touches supplied or inspired by producer Scott Solter. There�s an endless array of gently inspirational flourishes - the radiant piano chords of �New Monster Avenue�, the rippling vibraphones and soaring guitar lines of �Half Dead�, the perfect pizzicato cello in �Woke Up New�, the cross-hatched brass and Hammond of �If You See Light�.
Darnielle�s marvellous lyrics work in the same way � even at their most introspective, there�s always something to surprise; a momentary splash of colour, an arresting image.
The songs are spooked and spectral, driving at night past signposts which point towards forgotten promises and remembered losses. There are striking visions - of the fraught past, the splintered present and the daunting future.
And these moments of lucid verbal drama rub up against the sombre mood of Get Lonely, disrupting the album�s dazed beauty, casting light into its shady corners. These constant contrasts mean that, even at its most languid, the album is never merely pretty, and even at its most troubled, it is never merely dark. It is, however, a delicately nuanced triumph � an uncannily coherent and subtly redemptive record which should come to be seen as The Mountain Goats� most resonant, assured and magical collection of songs so far.