The Mountain Goats—John Darnielle, Matt Douglas, and Jon Wurster—announce their 24th full-length album, Days, out August 7th, 2026. To mark the announcement, the band is sharing its driving lead single “Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds.”
The band has announced world tour dates through the end of 2026. The tour kicks off May 15 at The Fillmore Silver Spring in Silver Spring, MD and includes a stop in Cincinnati, OH at Taft Theatre on Friday, August 14.
“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.’ 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,” says John Darnielle.
Days was produced by John Congleton and recorded at Sear Sound in Manhattan, still managed by the legendary Roberta Findlay. The sessions featured Rob Jost on bass and French horn, group backing vocals from Catherine Russsell, Jamie and Carolyn Leonhart, and layered backing vocals by Janis Siegal of The Manhattan Transfer on "Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums." Additionally, old friend Matt Nathanson contributed vocals to "Candlebox," and Mikaela Davis added harp to "Going to Fennario."
