The Mountain Goats, led by singer-songwriter John Darnielle, have built a prolific and influential career in indie music since the early 1990s. Known for their vast discography of storytelling and literary lyricism, Darnielle is regarded as one of the most distinctive voices in modern songwriting. Their work has a deep emotional resonance with their avid and loyal fanbase, built over the past 30 years.

Today, we find Darnielle awoken from a dream where he titled an album Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, with no sense of sonic direction in the dream, then proceeded to write the entire album based off of this arbitrary title. Produced by the Mountain Goats’ multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas, who also cowrote several songs, the record is embracing, inviting, and overflowing with melody and orchestration that extends far beyond the boundaries of their past work.