The Mountain Goats have announced a new album called Days, which is out on August 7 via their own Cadmean Dawn label. It follows last November’s Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, but it was actually conceived as a sequel to 2017’s excellent Goths. It’s led by ‘Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds’, a compelling and propulsive single that’s also got the best title on the record. (‘Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums’ and ‘Best Hard Rock Albums 2013’ follow closely behind.) Check it out below.
“This album began life as Grunges, a sequel to Goths, after I made a joke on social media about writing a song called ‘Contemplating Pearl Jam in the Carolina Dawn’,” John Darnielle explained in a press release. “A few months later my wife left town for a two week residency in Virginia. My wife leaving town to play hockey in Banff is how All Hail West Texas happened. These songs are loosely about the 70s, 80s, and 90s, which is to say they’re about the accumulation of days, each one a little further back than the next, sometimes miraculously seeming clearer as they recede and sometimes blurring into unrecognizable shapes which are sometimes pleasant and sometimes troubling. Most songs here are in major keys but don’t let that fool you. If you do let that fool you I have a bridge to sell you; there is nothing on the other side of the bridge. Still, you shouldn’t let that deter you. Who am I to tell you what kind of bridge you need, or where the bridge you need should lead? Nobody, really. Nobody at all.”
The Mountain Goats recorded the new album at Manhattan’s Sear Sound with producer John Congleton. It features bassist and French horn player Rob Jost, harpist Mikaela Davis, group backing vocals from Catherine Russell and Jamie and Carolyn Leonhart, and more.
Days Cover Artwork:
Days Tracklist:
1. Song for Layne Staley
2. Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds
3. Shallow Grave
4. Candlebox
5. Annie Haslam Imperial Phase
6. Crying on Eddie Nash’s Grave
7. Days
8. Best Hard Rock Albums 2013
9. Going to Fennario
10. Woodstock
11. Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums
12. Last Day
