The Mountain Goats Announce New Album 'In League with Dragons'

Hear the first single "Younger"

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Jan 28, 2019

After releasing the Hex of Infinite Binding EP late last year, the Mountain Goats have detailed a full-length follow-up.

Titled In League with Dragons, the latest from John Darnielle and co. will arrive April 26 through Merge. The album runs 12 tracks in length and was engineered by Matt Ross-Spang (Margo Price, Jason Isbell, John Prine).

This afternoon, Darnielle will unveil more about the album via Facebook Live from Wizards of the Coast (makers of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering) at 4 p.m. EST. Ahead of time, he shared a lengthy statement about the band's new effort:

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.

Alongside the announcement, the band have shared album cut "Younger," which you can hear in the player below.

As previously reported, the Mountain Goats will hit Canada on an upcoming North American tour, which is set to kick off in April.

In League with Dragons:

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

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