Folk-rock powerhouse the Mountain Goats have re-issued their sixth studio album ‘All Hail West Texas’ today,through Merge Records. The re-issue, both on vinyl and CD, will include bonus tracks, and an 1800 word essay from the bands frontman, John Darnielle.

It is still a matter of debate which grammatical category should be used when describing the Mountain Goats. For the first few years of their existence, the ‘band’ consisted solely of creator John Darnielle recording on a boom-box and releasing cassette tapes by the pick-up-load, the bespectacled personification of lo-fi, a bard whose scripture required nothing more than the most meagre of platforms.

2002 saw a change in tone as the Goats became a herd, Darnielle taking on colleagues for the first time, including bassist Peter Hughes who has stayed with the band since. The home-recording sound was abandoned in favour of a more mainstream vibe with the release of ‘Tallahassee‘, a concept album which chronicled a disintegrating marriage with agonizing acerbity.

The reaction from fans to the new sound was…mixed. Many decried Darnielle for abandoning the rustic approach his disciples knew and loved, while others felt the upped lucidity made the poetry more accessible.

Whether it’s a ‘they’ or still a ‘he’, and whether the more commercial sound was a step forwards or not will remain a matter of scrutiny. What cannot be argued against is the fact that Darnielle remains one of America’s most astounding songwriters, and has only improved with age, be it detailing an abusive adolescence under his cruel stepfather with both seething ire and glistering optimism on 2005’s ‘The Sunset Tree’, or re-visiting his teenage years spent among a group of meth-addicts on ‘We Shall All Be Healed’ with a haunting pathos and vitality, themes he explored again on last years phenomenal ‘Transcendental Youth’.

Today’s reissue of ‘All Hail West Texas‘ is a re-exploration of John Darnielle’s earlier days, and a turning point in Goats history, the last record of the Panasonic era. Billed on the cover as ‘fourteen songs about seven people, two houses, a motorcycle and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys’, and while it is quite literally what it says on the tin, the meagre description does not do justice to the verve and narrative that this concept album delivers.

Perhaps among the more overlooked Goats records, and understandably – 2002 was a double whammy, and no album would envy the prospect of being released within eight months of Tallahassee – this reissue is a well-timed reminder not just of their minimalistic years, but of how, regardless of which era is better, the Mountain Goats have always been, simply put, among the best folk rock projects in history. The biggest complaint that could be made now is that they do not visit the UK nearly enough.

Listen to the opening track of ‘All Hail West Texas‘, ‘The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton’ below.