The Mountain Goats @ Gorilla, Manchester, 15 Nov

Most of the best bands tend to be able to shift through different identities in convincing fashion and The Mountain Goats – not to put too fine a point on it – have more faces than the town hall clock.

Live Review by Joe Goggins | 23 Nov 2015

Frontman and founder John Darnielle is a fascinatingly versatile writer, capable of laugh-out-loud wit one minute and harrowing darkness the next, and he’s showing few signs of slowing down in that respect. It’s not long – just over a year – since he released his first novel, Wolf in White Van, and already he’s back in the Mountain Goats saddle, with their fifteenth LP, the wrestling-inspired Beat the Champ, dropping back in April.

Before the band take the stage at a bustling Gorilla tonight, the playing of some classic wrestling commentary over the speakers – and the ringing of a bell to signal the trio’s arrival – suggests that a set heavy on new material is on the cards; sure enough, the lurching drama of Stabbed to Death Outside San Juan joins the lilting Animal Mask and rollicking, guitar-driven Heel Turn 2 in opening proceedings with a smattering of cuts from Beat the Champ.

It’s almost instinctive to assume that an album based around Darnielle’s childhood fascination with wrestling’s golden era might be trite or even just outright daft, but the songs carry genuine panache and signature Darnielle snark in spades, especially on the trash talk-mocking Foreign Object.

Peter Hughes and Jon Wurster, on bass and drums respectively, leave the stage six songs in to allow Darnielle to play some solo acoustic tracks, and in doing so he mines the back catalogue for some serious deep cuts. Billy the Kid’s Dream of the Magic Shoes, plucked form 1993’s Chile de Arbol EP, is a delightfully silly highlight – “I don’t give a rat’s ass!” elicits a ripple of laughter from the crowd – while Thank You Mario but Our Princess Is in Another Castle, from 2008’s collaborative Black Pear Tree EP with Kaki King, proves Darnielle’s willingness to bring in songs from relative obscurity.

Not that there isn’t any room for fan favourites; two cuts from the 2002 classic Tallahassee, No Children and Game Shows Touch Our Lives, are rapturously received during the encore, as is The Diaz Brothers in opening the second set.

Sometimes the term ‘cult band’ comes off as patronising or as a back-handed compliment, but the position that The Mountain Goats have found themselves in, after more than two decades of carving out a rabid fanbase, is one to be envied; tonight feels like a genuine love-in, and with this kind of support behind him, no wonder Darnielle feels comfortable taking risks – be it diverse setlists or ostensibly niche concept records.

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