Emerging from the long-locked basement

We're still in that dread condition known as Extraordinarily Busy (although things have actually been going pretty well); in combination with some travel and a general fed-upness with the dark and the wintry cold, this has not been an ideal situation for blogging. 

We'll be back soon as soon as we can.

But I wanted to share my joy about the fact that the Mountain Goats have announced a new album, All Eternals Deck.

John Darnielle describes it thus:

If you know the feeling of exultation that comes with having recognized the oncoming train of fate, then that's the other thing the album's about. JD, wouldn't it be easier to write an album of, like, love songs? Probably, I would not know, my focus is mainly death scenes and downtown Portland. It's not like there aren't people in love either dying or getting arrested at 3rd and Yamhill, so really, if you can stretch your definition of "love song" we can all be happy. Other possible points of reference include Burnt Offerings, Go Ask Alice, and that one scene in The Warriors where they're on the train and the sun's coming up and they're safe but you know the scars are permanent now. Reversals of fortune and faces at the window and sudden unexpected screams of triumph here and there. Possible exits from the long-locked basement. These sorts of moments.

 
The bittersweet part of this, of course, is that the album's not out till the end of March 2011. With song titles such as 'Damn Those Vampires', 'The Autopsy Garland' and 'For Charles Bronson', I, for one, dear reader, am full of the old antici.....pation.

Via some looking into this issue, I see that TMG does the Twitter. Which is helpful, since they've been able to quash the rumour that All Eternals Deck is death metal.

Which is probably all to the good, however, someone should really do a death metal song about that scene from The Warriors.