I have to admit, I was more than a bit upset when I heard the new Mountain Goat album contained 12 songs titled after bible verses. After all, I'm a godless liberal and I didn't want to listen to John Darnielle go all Bob Dylan on me. I shouldn't have worried though, as the song 'I Corinthians 13:8-10' from 1996's lo-fi masterpiece 'Nothing for Juice' showed us - religious inspiration does not necessary lead to preaching.

So, on to the album then. After last years rather loud 'Heretic Pride' John's back to his inside voice - slightly more energetic than 'Get Lonely' but still on the subdued side. When it comes to the Mountain Goats, I love the shouting and the foot stamping rage in the earlier albums - I think the songs have a more immediate effect. Whereas in the quieter stuff I often find myself willing on the narrator to hurry up and tell me the story.

And they are all stories. What would you expect from the man who was named 'America's best non hip-hop lyrist' by The New Yorker? Particular highlights in this album include 'Matthew 25:21' - a touching and explicit tail of, well - this says it all:

We all stood there around you / Happy to hear you speak / The last of something bright burning / Still burning / Beyond the cancer and the chemotherapy / And you were a presence full of light upon this earth / And I am a witness to your life and to it's worth / It's three days later when I get the call / And there's nobody around to break my fall

These 12 expertly crafted songs all deal with religion - or more accurately - 'hard lessons that can be learnt from the Bible'. By definition these lessons are all about the the kind of human experiences that are timeless - murder, love and loss. They're explored though a series of case study songs - some true, some not - all of them insightful and all of them well worth your time.