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Nov 19, 2025 Web Exclusive By Nick Roseblade

Going into the new Mountain Goats album, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, it was hard to know what to expect. 2023’s Jenny from Thebes and 2022’s Bleed Out hadn’t blown this reviewer away as much as 2017’s Goths or 2015’s Beat the Champ had. Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, however, is gripping from start to finish.

The album starts with the instrumental “Overture.” The only other instrumental Mountain Goats that slaps this hard is “Elsa From Rialto.” Killer melodies fly about. Glorious strings explode from the speakers, and everything has a 1970s jazz/American sitcom theme tune vibe to it.

“Fishing Boat” is the first classic Mountains Goats track on the album (there are a few more). The song revolves around three shipwrecked survivors of a catastrophic storm. Did we mention this album is a musical based on a dream frontman John Darnielle had? “Fishing Boat” has the usual killer lyrics we expect from the band—“Some who keep their secrets like treasure” and “Free as the churn of the riptide” let us know Darnielle is in good form. The music veers from bouncy rockers to poignant laments, all underpinned by exquisite orchestration.

As the album has a musical theme, Darnielle brought in his pal, and Mr. Musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda, on a few songs. His vocals are used to add texture to the songs, rather than being solo performances. It’s a nice blink-and-you-miss-it easter egg. As is naming a song “The Lady from Shanghai 2.” Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan is the best Mountain Goats album in a decade, maybe even since Transcendental Youth. The story is compelling, the songs exquisite, the lyrics diamond sharp, and the melodies so catchy they get lodged in your head long after the album has finished. Let’s hope Darnielle’s next dream yields something as wonderful as this. (www.mountain-goats.com)

Author rating: 8.5/10