Merge Records

The album was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville, TN. All packaging formats include spot-gloss detail and feature artwork by Leela Corman.

Included in:

• Bitter Southerner's Best Southern Albums of 2017 (#16)
• PopMatters' Best Indie Rock of 2017 (#9)
• Aquarium Drunkard's 2017 Year in Review

From Peter Hughes of the Mountain Goats:

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 humor, there is evident throughout a real tenderness toward, and solidarity with, our former fellow travelers—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.

All physical formats include a download.

Tracklist

1. Rain in Soho
2. Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds
3. The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement
4. We Do It Different on the West Coast
5. Unicorn Tolerance
6. Stench of the Unburied
7. Wear Black
8. Paid in Cocaine
9. Rage of Travers
10. Shelved
11. For the Portuguese Goth Metal Bands
12. Abandoned Flesh