The Sunset Tree
The Sunset Tree is the ninth studio album by the Mountain Goats, released on April 26, 2005 by 4AD. The album's songs revolve around the house John Darnielle grew up in and the people who lived there, including his mother, sister, stepfather, friends, and enemies. Notes. While "We Shall All Be Healed" focused on Darnielle's years as a teenager involved with other methamphetamine users, "The Sunset Tree" focuses on his childhood, and a recurring theme is domestic violence. The album title refers to a scene in Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh" in  which the character Theobald beats his son Ernest for being unable to pronounce a hard C when singing a hymn. The hymn, "The Tyrolese Evening Hymn," begins with the lines "Come, come, come, Come to the sunset tree." In the album's liner notes, Darnielle writes: Many lyrics refer to Darnielle's abuse-riddled childhood – especially in the songs "This Year," "Dance Music," and "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod." The tone of the album is somber, dealing with Darnielle's longing for escape and his feelings of powerlessness, building up to the song "Lion's Teeth," which Darnielle has described  as a "revenge fantasy" in an introduction to a live performance of the song. The album concludes with the two final songs "Love, Love, Love," in which Darnielle notes the virtue and folly of doing things for reasons of love, and "Pale Green Things," in which he recalls a time his stepfather took him out to watch horses at a racetrack. Darnielle closes the song and the album with a lyric about his sister calling him to inform him of his stepfather's death. Reception. "The Sunset Tree" has a metascore of 83 on Metacritic based on 28 reviews, which  indicates "universal acclaim." "Pitchfork" placed "The Sunset Tree" at number 102 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s. In 2010, the Art Of Time Ensemble featuring (former Barenaked Ladies singer) Steven Page covered "Lion's Teeth" for their record A Singer Must Die.