The Mountain Goats have announced Days, a swift follow-up to the album they released last November, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan. Leading the record—and a tracklist of typically colorful song names—is “Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds.” (Delve in further for such titles as “Best Hard Rock Albums 2013” and “Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums.”) Check that out below, along with their previously announced tour dates.
John Darnielle said in a press release that the album started life as Grunges, a sequel to their 2017 LP Goths, after he made “a joke on social media about writing a song called ‘Contemplating Pearl Jam in the Carolina Dawn.’” He went on, “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.”
John Congleton produced Days, recording the band at Sear Sound in Manhattan. Darnielle is joined in the band by Matt Douglas and Jon Wurster, but no longer Peter Hughes, who left in 2024 after 30 years. Additional players on the new record include bassist and French horn player Rob Jost, harpist Mikaela Davis, and assorted backing vocalists.
Revisit Darnielle’s Ozzy Osbourne obituary, For the Back Street Kids, and Sam Sodomsky’s 2023 profile Inside John Darnielle’s Boiling Brain.
Days:
01 Song for Layne Staley
02 Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds
03 Shallow Grave
04 Candlebox
05 Annie Haslam Imperial Phase
06 Crying on Eddie Nash’s Grave
07 Days
08 Best Hard Rock Albums 2013
09 Going to Fennario
10 Woodstock
11 Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums
12 Last Day
The Mountain Goats:
05-15 Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore Silver Spring
05-16 Woodstock, NY – Bearsville Theater
05-17 New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall
05-19 Boston, MA – Citizens House of Blues
05-21 Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall
05-22 Kalamazoo, MI – Bell’s Beer Garden
05-23 Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue Theatre
05-24 St. Louis, MO – Delmar Hall
05-26 Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl Nashville
05-28 Lexington, KY – Manchester Music Hall
05-29 Charlotte, NC – Neighborhood Theatre
05-30 Athens, GA – 40 Watt Club
05-31 Charleston, SC – Spoleto Festival USA
06-25 Milwaukee, WI – Summerfest
06-26 Berwyn, IL – Fitzgeralds Outdoors
07-10 Morrison, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheatre ^
08-08 Portland, OR – Pioneer Courthouse Square *
08-09 Seattle, WA – ZooTunes at Woodland Park Zoo *
08-14 Cincinnati, OH – Taft Theatre
08-15 Cleveland, OH – Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
08-16 Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Smalls Theatre
08-17 Buffalo, NY – Town Ballroom
08-19 South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground Ballroom
08-20 Lititz, PA – Mickey’s Black Box
08-21 Norfolk, VA – The NorVa
08-22 Durham, NC – DPAC
10-05 Helsinki, Finland – Kuudes Linja #
10-07 Stockholm, Sweden – Nalen #
10-08 Oslo, Norway – Vulkan Arena #
10-10 Copenhagen, Denmark – Pumpehuset #
10-11 Berlin, Germany – Metropol #
10-12 Hamburg, Germany – Pop Seasons at Christianskirche
10-13 Ghent, Belgium – De Centrale #
10-14 Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg #
10-16 Manchester, England – Albert Hall #
10-18 Dublin, Ireland – Vicar Street #
10-19 Glasgow, Scotland – Barrowland Ballroom #
10-21 London, England – Hackney Church #
10-22 London, England – Hackney Church #
10-23 Bristol, England – Bristol Beacon #
11-24 Los Angeles, CA – Walt Disney Concert Hall
12-10 New York, NY – Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall
12-11 New York, NY – Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall
^ with the Avett Brothers
* with the Hold Steady
# with Craig Finn
