Beat the champ

"One of Darnielle's premier talents as a musician is his ability to cast personal mantras as singalong anthems. At his best, his songs feel as essential as water. Mountain Goats fans will testify to the healing powers of standing arm-to-arm with hundreds of people while shouting "I am going to make it through this year if it kills me." Beat the Champ, however, eschews universality by coming from such a specific point of view. You don't necessarily need to know what a heel turn is in order to connect with "Heel Turn 2", but it doesn't hurt. There's a noble simplicity to these songs, though, reflecting Darnielle's warm memories of his wrestling fandom".

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"Darnielle doesn't quite have the ideal voice to inhabit the tough guys he often sings about, but he understands the grand drama and the small details of these tales well enough to make his characters seem real and multi-dimensional, and he allows the songs to sound gentle when they deal with hard lives. And the accompaniment from his bandmates Peter Hughes (bass) and Jon Wurster (drums) is superb, following the paths of Darnielle's voice, guitar, and keyboards with intuitive grace. You don't have to care about wrestling to be knocked out by Beat the Champ, but Darnielle makes it clear that these stories mean something real to him, and this is a fascinating portrait not of who wins or loses, but those who play the game".

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