The Coroner's Gambit

The Coroner's Gambit
Studio album by
ReleasedOctober 17, 2000
GenreLo-fi
Length43:00
LabelAbsolutely Kosher
ProducerJohn Darnielle
The Mountain Goats chronology
Full Force Galesburg
(1997)
The Coroner's Gambit
(2000)
All Hail West Texas
(2002)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [1]
Pitchfork8.5/10 [2]
Splendid (ezine)(favorable) [3]

The Coroner's Gambit is the fifth studio album by the Mountain Goats, released on October 17, 2000, by Absolutely Kosher Records. Several songs from this album, including "The Coroner's Gambit", "Bluejays and Cardinals", and "Shadow Song", were written about Rozz Williams, who ended his life two years before the release of the album, and was a personal friend of John Darnielle.[4][5] In some live versions, he will reference Williams by first name.[6]

Recording

The album is mostly John Darnielle and his acoustic guitar, but it has sparse auxiliary instrumentation as well. Most of the songs were recorded on John's Panasonic RX-FT500 boom box, but due to either mechanical failure or desire for clearer sound quality, he used a 4-track recording machine for some tracks.

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Jaipur"3:13
2."Elijah"3:07
3."Trick Mirror"2:40
4."Island Garden Song"2:27
5."The Coroner's Gambit"2:55
6."Baboon"2:16
7."Scotch Grove"1:37
8."Horseradish Road"2:28
9."Family Happiness"2:57
10."Onions"2:15
11."Bluejays and Cardinals"3:03
12."Shadow Song"2:45
13."There Will Be No Divorce"2:51
14."Insurance Fraud #2"3:02
15."The Alphonse Mambo"2:44
16."We Were Patriots"2:40
Total length:43:00

Personnel

References

  1. ^ https://www.allmusic.com/album/r504016
  2. ^ "The Mountain Goats: The Coroner's Gambit". Pitchfork.
  3. ^ "Splendid E-zine reviews: The Mountain Goats". Archived from the original on 2005-03-14. Retrieved 2005-03-20.
  4. ^ "The Annotated Mountain Goats".
  5. ^ "Roger Painter". Archived from the original on 2017-01-02.
  6. ^ "Mountain Goats Live at First Unitarian Church on 2005-05-04". 4 May 2005.