Goths

The sixteenth studio album from American indie-folk band The Mountain Goats.

The Mountain Goats' line-up on Goths is a quartet, featuring Matt Douglas on woodwinds. The album features no pitch correction, no comped vocals, nor any guitar - a big change for the band that began with Darnielle's voice and an acoustic guitar. It was recorded by Modest Mouse and Swans producer Brandon Eggleston, and features members of the Nashville Symphony Chorus.

"The theme this time around is goth, a subject closer to my heart perhaps than that of any Mountain Goats album previous. And while John writes the songs, as he always has, it feels more than ever like he's speaking for all of us in the band, erstwhile goths (raises hand) or otherwise, for these are songs that approach an identity most often associated with youth from a perspective that is inescapably adult. Anyone old enough to have had the experience of finding oneself at sea in a cultural landscape that's suddenly indecipherable will empathize with Pat Travers showing up to a Bauhaus show looking to jam, for example.

But underneath the outward humour, there is evident throughout a real tenderness toward, and solidarity with, our former fellow travellers-the friends whose bands never made it out of Fender's Ballroom, the Gene Loves Jezebels of the world-the ones whose gothic paths were overtaken by the realities of life, or of its opposite. It's something we talk about a lot, how fortunate and grateful we are to share this work, a career that's become something more rewarding and fulfilling than I think any of us could have imagined. We all know how easily it could've gone the other way, and indeed for a long time did." - Peter Hughes of the Mountain Goats