The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed

With song titles like “Pigs that Ran Straightaway into the Water, Triumph of,” it’s no surprise that this album is a little left field. But chief Mountain Goat John Darnielle crafts punk-folk numbers about dark moments that are refreshingly smart and literate. The gentle “Mole” takes a quirky look at a friend hospitalized in intensive care, while the anthemic “Against Pollution” deals, oddly enough, with church, rust and a shooting in a liquor store robbery. It all adds up to some skewed but compelling views of modern life.