• News

• All

Jan 28, 2019 By Christopher Roberts The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats have announced a new album, In League With Dragons, and shared its first single, “Younger.” In League With Dragons is due out April 26 via Merge. Listen to the new single below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art. Also below are the band’s upcoming tour dates.

In League With Dragons follows 2017’s Goths and 2015’s wrestling-themed Beat the Champ. Frontman John Darnielle wrote all the songs. The Mountain Goats (songwriter and guitarist Darnielle, drummer Jon Wurster, bassist Peter Hughes, and multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas) recorded the album at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN. Matt Ross-Spang (Margo Price, Jason Isbell, John Prine) engineered the album, which also features additional vocal arrangements from Robert Bailey and strings performed by the Macedonian Radio Symphonic Orchestra.

Darnielle had this to say about the album in a press release: “This album began life as a rock opera about a besieged seaside community called Riversend ruled by a benevolent wizard, for which some five to seven songs were written. When I’m focusing on a project, I always distract myself from the through-line with multiple byways, which are kind of like mini-games within the broader architecture of a long video game. As I worked on the Riversend stuff, weird noir visions started creeping in, probably under the influence of Leonardo Sciascia (a Sicilian author, he wrote mysteries) and Ross MacDonald’s The Zebra-Striped Hearse, which a friend from Port Washington gave me while I was in the thick of the writing. I thought these moods helped complicate the wizards and dragons a little, and, as I thought about my wizard, his health failing, the invasion by sea almost certain to wipe out half his people, I thought about what such a person might look like in the real world: watching a country show at a Midwestern casino, or tryout pitching for an American League team years after having lit up the marquees. Finally, I wrote the title track, which felt like a drawing-together of the themes in play: rebellion against irresistible tides, the lush vistas of decay, necessary alliances. I am earnestly hoping that a new genre called ‘dragon noir’ will spring from the forehead of nearly two years’ work on these songs, but, if not, I am content for this to be the sole example of the style.”

Darnielle will talk about the album and do a solo performance via a Facebook Live from Wizards of the Coast (makers of D&D and Magic: The Gathering) at 4 p.m. Eastern / 1 p.m. Pacific today. Check it out at The Mountain Goats’ Facebook page.

In League With Dragons Tracklist:

1. Done Bleeding
2. Younger
3. Passaic 1975
4. Clemency for the Wizard King
5. Possum by Night
6. In League with Dragons
7. Doc Gooden
8. Going Invisible 2
9. Waylon Jennings Live!
10. Cadaver Sniffing Dog
11. An Antidote for Strychnine
12. Sicilian Crest

The Mountain Goats Tour Dates:

4/26 - 9:30 - Washington, D.C. (SOLD OUT)
4/27 - Dogfish Head - Milton, DE (SOLD OUT)
4/28 - The Wilbur Theater - Boston, MA (SOLD OUT)
4/30 - Brooklyn Steel - Brooklyn, NY
5/1 - White Eagle Hall - Jersey City, NJ
5/3 - L’Astral - Montreal, QB
5/4 - Bronson Centre - Ottawa, ON
5/5 - Phoenix - Toronto, ON
5/7 - Mr Smalls - Pittsburgh, PA
5/8 - Mr Smalls - Pittsburgh, PA
5/9 - Woodward Theater - Cincinnati, OH
5/10 - Cannery - Nashville, TN
5/11 - 1884 Lounge - Memphis, TN
5/13 - Buskirk Chumley - Bloomington, IN
5/14 - Majestic Theatre - Madison, WI
5/15 - Thalia Hall - Chicago, IL
5/16 - Thalia Hall - Chicago, IL
5/17 - First Avenue - Minneapolis, MN
8/28 - Metro Music Hall - Salt Lake City, UT
8/29 - Pink Garter - Jackson, WY
8/30 - Pub Station - Billings, MT
8/31 - Top Hat Lounge - Missoula, MT
9/1 - The Bing Crosby Theater - Spokane, WA
9/4 - The Showbox -Seattle, WA
9/5 - Neumos - Seattle, WA
9/6 - Imperial Vancouver - Vancouver, BC
9/7 - McDonald Theatre - Eugene, OR
9/9 - Crystal Ballroom - Portland, OR
9/10 - Aladdin - Portland, OR
9/12 - The Fillmore - San Francisco, CA
9/13 - The Fillmore - San Francisco, CA
9/14 - Belasco Theater - Los Angeles, CA
9/16 - House of Blues - Anaheim, CA
9/17 - House of Blues - San Diego, CA
9/18 - Brooklyn Bowl - Las Vegas, NV

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.