Songs for Pierre Chuvin

April 2020 brought the first album truly birthed by the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the world that year. As health concerns prevented venues from presenting concerts and musicians from touring, the plans Mountain Goats leader John Darnielle had made to gather his band in early 2020, begin work on a new album, and then hit the road for a concert tour were scuttled with studios closed and venues shuttered. This meant the paychecks that Darnielles accompanists and crew were expecting suddenly vanished. Partly to keep himself occupied while stuck inside and partly to bring in some income to help out his valued colleagues, Darnielle hunkered down, wrote a batch of songs, and then recorded them at home with the aging Panasonic boombox he used to make the Mountain Goats earliest lo-fi recordings, writing and recording one song a day for ten days. Thus we have Songs for Pierre Chuvin, a spontaneous and unexpected return to Darnielles roots as a guy with a guitar and/or keyboard singing songs in his living room with the simplest documentation possible. Darnielles imagination was sparked by a book by French historian Pierre Chuvin about the fall of paganism and the rise of Christianity, and the songs on Songs for Pierre Chuvin turn on episodes in this era in French history. However, the use of wristwatches, frames of burnt movie film, and hanging out with his crew as metaphors and signposts (not to mention him calling attention to the hum of his boombox) suggest Darnielles aim was not to create an academic document useful to educators. As usual, the time and place is just a starting point for short but well-drawn sketches of various characters going through the paces of their lives, preserving small events that seem honestly important in their eyes. Darnielle has learned to make use of the recording studio in smart and sophisticated ways since he abandoned his cassette machine with 2003s Tallahassee, but Songs for Pierre Chuvin is a reminder that the greatest joy and charm of the Mountain Goats lies in his songs and the simple yet evocative way he sings them. Stripped to the essentials, his music is still something special and still communicates beautifully. Songs for Pierre Chuvin is a rough-hewn gem thats a splendid throwback to the wild early days of the Mountain Goats, and it only took a pandemic to make it happen. It may not be that much of an upside, but that makes it no less welcome. ~ Mark Deming