The Life of the World to Come (album)


The Life of the World to Come is the twelfth studio album by the Mountain Goats, released by 4AD on October 6, 2009. The third track, "Genesis 3:23", was released as a free download via the band's website on July 28. The album peaked at #110 on the Billboard Top 200 albums on its chart debut.
Continuing in their exploration of religious themes, The Life of the World to Come is composed of twelve tracks, each one inspired by a single verse from the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian New Testament. The album's title comes from a line of the Nicene Creed.
Early copies of the album sold via Rough Trade's physical and online stores featured a bonus CD-R, The Life of the World in Flux. It contains early drafts of most of the songs which appear on the main album and four extra songs that do not, and has some stylistic resemblances to both the band's pre-2002 'lo-fi' albums and to the 2005 The Sunset Tree LP. 2010 saw the release of The Life of the World to Come: A Film by Rian Johnson, in which American filmmaker Rian Johnson films a Claremont, California performance by Darnielle of the entire album, mostly solo on piano and guitar, but joined by former Mountain Goat Rachel Ware on several songs.

Reception

The album was positively reviewed by critics, gaining 78/100 points on Metacritic. Pitchfork Media listed it as 45th best of the year, adding that album is "a work of deep, profound empathy-- the kind of thing the Bible is supposed to teach us in the first place". Music critic Robert Christgau said of the album: 'this is literary rock as it should be' and gave it an A− rating.
As of October 2009 it had sold 14,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Personnel