Find A Nicer Way To Kill It

Andrew Jackson Jihad “Temple Grandin”

Andrew Jackson Jihad has been around for about a decade, so they’re hardly new to sounding remarkably similar to The Mountain Goats, but wow, they sound remarkably similar to The Mountain Goats. Sean Bonnette certainly has his own voice and lyrical style, but the music sensibility is very close to where John Darnielle has been over the past several years – a very particular way of playing acoustic guitar, a very particular sort of melodic phrasing, an emphasis on lyrics above all other things. Bonnette isn’t on Darnielle’s level on that front – not a lot of people are, really – but his words are very vivid and rooted in the kind of bitter, ironic tone of a lot of ’00s emo rock. “Temple Grandin” is both oblique and extremely specific, with words that bring up a lot of bile and ideas about cruelty and convenience, but don’t take shape as a specific narrative. It’s just one of those things where you wouldn’t want to be the person addressed in the song.

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