After Heretic Pride and the Satanic Messiah EP, John Darnielle’s getting more Godly with the forthcoming The Life Of The World To Come, which features a 12-song tracklist made entirely of Bible verses. He’s joined on the collection by Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster, longtime pal Peter Hughes on bass, and Owen Pallett concocting string arrangements. You can hear what they’re up to on lead track “Genesis 3:23,” but first, the relevant verse: “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” That’ll help you make sense of the song’s break-in and homelessness.
Over at mountain-goats.com Darnielle explains the reasoning behind his holiness:
I guess the obvious question is going to be: “John, have you had some sort of religious awakening?” and while I guess lots of people might want to be coy about answering that, that’s never really been my style, so: no. It’s not like that. It’s not some heavy-narrative-distance deal either, though, and it’s not a screed. It’s twelve new songs: twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of. More than that I’d want to wait to say until some people have heard it, which won’t be long. Will there be more news soon, quite soon? Like, next week, even? Oh yes there will!
If you want to do more reading:
01 “1 Samuel 15:23″
02 “Psalms 40:2″
03 “Genesis 3:23″
04 “Philippians 3:20-21″
05 “Hebrews 11:40″
06 “Genesis 30:3″
07 “Romans 10:9″
08 “1 John 4:16″
09 “Matthew 25:21″
10 “Deuteronomy 2:10″
11 “Isaiah 45:23″
12 “Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace”
The Life Of The World To Come is out 10/6 via 4AD.
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Weird Rauschenberg type album cover.
weird Hootie-and-the-blowfishish album cover.
New song is decent..
in other news, yous guys should do a Premature Evaluation of the new WHY? record. It’s pretty much perfect
Always loved Darnielle’s poetry, just don’t know why he doesn’t do more collaborations
I like the track nice and mellow. It’s something I could throw on and drift away into my own thoughts of times past.
The way he wrote the songs on the album to correspond to bible verses is also a pretty cool concept.
Damn, If this had only come out in April I’m sure I couldve found a less painful way of ekeing out those last 5 pages of my “Pauline Interpretations” term paper
That, or if Sufjan were more exegetical/ productive. Half Handed Cloud?
I like it. And I’m always excited about whatever Darnielle is up to.
Yawn. Nostalgia is the most useless of human emotions.
catchy as hell. (tee hee)
this reminds me of something i’ve always wondered: why does “contemporary christian” music have to suck so bad? it has to be because anytime something has musical merit, it’s exempt from the “christian music” label.
put john darnielle in charge and the christian music stations might start being tolerable!
i guess this isn’t necessarily “christian” music, anyway, since most of the verses are from the old testament. religious, at least.
Really? I count 6 Old Testament, 6 New Testament……
I guess you’re right… my knowledge of the subject is not where it probably should be
Because the genre/industry of official “Christian music” is utterly backwards. Wrong goals, wrong ideas, wrong wrong wrong.
Which is why Christians who make good music almost invariably avoid/leave “Christian” labels.
Tour dates are coming soon. Pollstar has a date for Sept 18 in Ithaca, which John confirmed.
Great news! Concept sounds interesting. Can’t wait to devour this!!!
“concept sounds interesting” ?
did you know you can purchase sneakers with velcro instead of laces? I figured I’d totally blow your mind with that one.
This song sounds like the demo on my keyboard
i prefer my darnielle a little angrier but i’m still Ridiculously excited for this.
he should stick with writing poetry. His musical skills are seriously lacking.