All Hail West Texas

Infobox Album
Name = All Hail West Texas
Type = studio
Artist = The Mountain Goats


Released = February 19, 2002
Recorded = ???
Genre = Lo-fi
Length = 42:02
Label = Emperor Jones
Producer = John Darnielle
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:9s9sa9wgq23a link]
*Pitchfork (8.2/10) [http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/20059/Mountain_Goats_All_Hail_West_Texas 4/30/2002]
*Popmatters (favorable) [http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/m/mountaingoats-allhail.shtml 3/29/2002]
Last album = "The Coroner's Gambit"
(2000)
This album = "All Hail West Texas"
(2002)
Next album = "Tallahassee (album)"
(2002)

"All Hail West Texas" is an album by The Mountain Goats. After the slight increase in production values on 2000's "The Coroner's Gambit", "All Hail West Texas" is, as of 2007, the last Mountain Goats album on which all the songs were recorded on John Darnielle's trademark Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox.

The album is loosely a concept album, with the cover stating that the album consists of "fourteen songs about seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys". Many of the songs explicitly reference places in Texas, and evoke a lifestyle ethos born of the vast expanses of desert and highway found in West Texas itself.

Several songs were written to appear on the record that were not included in its final version. Three were given away on the Tiny Mix Tapes website ("Song for God", "Warm Lonely Planet", and "Waco"). John Darnielle said there was a full set of fifteen outtakes that he intended to release for free one day, but he destroyed them after hearing about the leak of Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg. It is not known if that set included the three listed above or not.

When the promotional copies of this album were sent out, a unique General Highway Map of a part of West Texas was included in the mailing. Apparently this was not acknowledged by any of the critics who received it. [Letter from Craig Stewart of Emperor Jones Records dated 18 August 2004]

Track listing

All songs by John Darnielle.

# "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton"
# "Fall of the Star High School Running Back"
# "Color in Your Cheeks"
# "Jenny"
# "Fault Lines"
# "Balance"
# "Pink and Blue"
# "Riches and Wonders"
# "The Mess Inside"
# "Jeff Davis County Blues"
# "Distant Stations"
# "Blues in Dallas"
# "Source Decay"
# "Absolute Lithops Effect"

References

External links

* [http://www.themountaingoats.net/lyrics/ahwtx_lyr.html Complete lyrics to the album]