The Mountain Goats, Koko, London

With a back catalogue of over 400 songs, you can never know quite what to expect from a Mountain Goats live show. You can, however, be rest assured that John Darnielle and co will put on an incredible performance that relies not on the light shows and theatrics that so many musicians employ these days, but on intelligent song writing and confident showmanship.

The Mountain Goats work their way through much of the new album, interspersed with tracks from all their studio records and a fair few of John’s early, lo-fi tape recorded tracks. At a couple of points, John’s talented (and in the case of Peter, wonderfully suave) backing band leave the stage for the original Mountain Goat to perform solo – wowing the audience with rare tracks like ‘You Were Cool’ as well as ‘hits’ (or as close to hits as The Mountain Goats have ever enjoyed) such as ‘Woke Up New’.

Ending with ‘This Year’, the gloriously bleak ‘No Children’ and a final encore with ‘The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton’ is an extraordinary sight. Darnielle’s career that spans over two decades is at its strongest point yet, with no indication this is to end anytime soon.