The best albums of 2021 include BROCKHAMPTON, Taylor Swift, Isaiah Rashad, Injury Reserve, Lana Del Rey, Genesis Owusu, Los Lobos, Jungle, The Mountain Goats and DMX. Best of 2021 Thanks for sticking with us this far, as we’ve now reached part five of our ambitious ranking of the year’s…

The Mountain Goats’ latest album, Dark in Here, feels so timely that it’s hard to believe the band recorded it more than a year ago. According to the liner notes, John Darnielle and his bandmates bashed out these 12 tracks over six days in early March 2020. At that…

The best albums of 2020 include Washed Out, the Mountain Goats, Ethan Gruska, Tom Petty, Tyler Bryant and the Shakedown, Logic, The Strokes, Moses Sumney, Fleet Foxes, Willie Nelson, Yves Tumor, Nicolas Jaar, Ed O’Brien, Charli XCX and Blackpink. After nearly a decade of living through 2020, we’re finally…

With nearly 20 albums in just under 30 years, The Mountain Goats have grown vastly beyond being John Darnielle’s solo project. The last two albums polarize the band’s eccentricity with its roots—namely the would-be high fantasy of In League With Dragons and Darnielle’s stripped-down solo effort Songs for Pierre Chuvin.…

When The Mountain Goats announced In League with Dragons, and you saw that the announcement was sponsored by Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast, you may have made some assumptions. You may have been expecting a concept album set on Toril, full of songs about the gods and…

Photos: Joaquin Cabello and Shawn Robbins SAN FRANCISCO — The Weeknd put on a headliner-caliber show to close out the first day of Outside Lands on Friday. It’s hard to believe the Canadian artist was just another YouTube singer only eight years ago. His polished neo-R&B vocals were accompanied by…

Photo illustration: Alessio Neri and Roman Gokhman Since 2008, concertgoers in the Bay Area and beyond have carefully planned out their Outside Lands itineraries. With numerous music stages, the Barbary comedy tent, wacky culinary GastroMagic stage, pop-up performances (that throw a wrench into everyone’s carefully sculpted, laminated schedules), not…

Mountain Goats perform at Front Porch Music Festival at Wente Vineyards in Livermore, Calif., on Sept. 1, 2012. Photos: Eric O’Donnell. Livermore’s Wente Vineyards, venerable for hosting big-name artists like John Fogerty, Sheryl Crow and Dianna Krall, went indie Saturday with a double-bill of The Mountain Goats and The…