John Darnielle looks back with wry fondness on this 24th full-length album, revisiting obscure events and semi-famous people in his typically arch and literate way. Music figures prominently in this gallery of memories — he dedicates one song to the prog band Renaissance’s 1976 date at Carnegie Hall, another to a mythical opening slot for grungy Candlebox, still another to the speed metal band, Venom, “hollering cocaine.”
One of the best of these songs recounts the later days of Layne Staley, who doesn’t want this, any of this, now that he’s got it. As usual, Darnielle writes crisp, well-tailored third-person stories about other people, which clearly also reflect his own experiences.
This is a relatively subtle album, not exactly…

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