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Apr 12, 2019 By Christopher Roberts The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats are releasing a new album, In League With Dragons, on April 26 via Merge. Now they have shared another song from it, “Sicilian Crest.” Listen below. The band’s John Darnielle has also launched season two of his podcast I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, co-hosted with Joseph Fink, and you can listen to that below too.

Darnielle had this to say about the song in a press release: “‘Sicilian Crest,’ lyrically, is more reminiscent of early Mountain Goats than anything since a couple of the songs on Heretic Pride - but began life as an in comprehensible title in a notebook, has its genesis in playing around at the piano with my son while a Moridira Hurricane & a Fender Twin on standby stood close at hand, and ended up being a cryptically political dance number with shades of New Order or the Alarm. My bandmates are going to kill me for referencing The Alarm in this announcement, and one of them will kill me twice if I don’t mention that the Alarm’s drummer’s name was ‘Twist.’ So, should the worst come to pass, please enjoy my funeral, and in the meantime please enjoy this episode of I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats.”

Previously The Mountain Goats shared the album’s first single, “Younger” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Then they shared another song from it, “Cadaver Sniffing Dog.”

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 previous 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.”

The Mountain Goats Tour Dates:
Apr 26 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club (SOLD OUT)
Apr 27 Rehoboth Beach, DE - Dogfish Head Brewery (SOLD OUT)
Apr 28 Boston, MA - The Wilbur (SOLD OUT)
Apr 30 Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Steel (SOLD OUT)
May 01 Jersey City, NJ - White Eagle Hall (SOLD OUT)
May 03 Montreal, QC - L’Astral
May 04 Ottawa, ON - Bronson Centre
May 05 Toronto, ON - Phoenix
May 07 Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre
May 08 Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre
May 09 Cincinnati, OH - Woodward Theater
May 10 Nashville, TN - Cannery Ballroom (SOLD OUT)
May 11 Memphis, TN - 1884 Lounge (SOLD OUT)
May 13 Bloomington, IN - Buskirk-Chumley Theater
May 14 Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
May 15 Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall (SOLD OUT)
May 16 Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall (SOLD OUT)
May 17 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
Jul 17 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
Jul 18 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar (SOLD OUT)
Jul 19 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer (SOLD OUT)
Jul 20 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer
Jul 22 Asbury Park, NJ - Asbury Lanes
Jul 23 Charlottesville, VA - Jefferson Theater
Jul 24 Durham, NC - Carolina Theatre*
Aug 16 Hickory, NC - Music in the Mill
Aug 28 Salt Lake City, UT - Metro Music Hall
Aug 29 Jackson, WY - Pink Garter Theatre
Aug 30 Billings, MT - The Pub Station
Aug 31 Missoula, MT - Top Hat Lounge
Sep 01 Spokane, WA - Bing Crosby Theater
Sep 04 Seattle, WA - The Showbox (SOLD OUT)
Sep 05 Seattle, WA - Neumos (SOLD OUT)
Sep 06 Vancouver, BC - Imperial Vancouver
Sep 07 Eugene, OR - McDonald Theatre
Sep 09 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
Sep 10 Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater (SOLD OUT)
Sep 12 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore (SOLD OUT)
Sep 13 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore (SOLD OUT)
Sep 14 Los Angeles, CA - Belasco Theater
Sep 16 Anaheim, CA - House of Blues
Sep 17 San Diego, CA - House of Blues
Sep 18 Las Vegas, NV - Brooklyn Bowl
Nov 09 Slaktkyrkan - Stockholm, SE
Nov 10 Rockefeller - Oslo, NO
Nov 11 Pustervik - Gothenburg, SE
Nov 14 De Helling - Utrecht, NL
Nov 15 02 Shepherds bush empire - London, UK
Nov 16 Brudenell Social Club - Leeds, UK (SOLD OUT)
Nov 17 Brudenell Social Club - Leeds, UK (SOLD OUT)
Nov 18 St Luke’s - Glasgow, UK
Nov 20 Button Factory - Dublin, IE
Nov 22 Sala 0 - Madrid, ES
Nov 23 Café Torgal - Ourense, ES
Nov 24 Lisboa ao Vivo - Lisbon, PT

* MRG30 w/ Hiss Golden Messenger, H.C. McEntire

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