The Mountain Goats have announced a new album. Arriving October 27 via Merge, Jenny From Thebes marks the sequel to the band’s 2002 LP All Hail West Texas. Ahead of their new record, the Mountain Goats have release lead single “Clean Slate.” Check it out below.
As frontman John Darnielle explains it, Jenny From Thebes is a rock opera about a woman who buys a Kawasaki to ride as far away as possible from a town that she’s been carrying on her shoulders for too long. “‘Clean Slate’ sets the scene: This is the house Jenny rents; these are the people who crash there when they need a place to stay; this is where she’s at in the process of becoming someone other than the keyholder she’s been,” he said in a press release.
Produced by Trina Shoemaker and recorded at the Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jenny From Thebes features guitar by Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, horn and string arrangements by Matt Douglas, and backing vocals from Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go’s and Matt Nathanson.
The new LP follows the Mountain Goats’ 2022 album, Bleed Out, which was produced by Bognanno and drew inspiration from action flicks from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Darnielle described the tracks on that record as “uptempo mini-action movies” that were filled with their own “plots, characters, heists, hostages, questionable capers, getaway cars, all that stuff.”
Since releasing Bleed Out, Darnielle showed up in Natasha Lyonne and Rian Johnson’s crime comedy Poker Face, where he played a guitarist for a one-hit-wonder rock band called Doxxxology. The band is fronted by a character named Ruby Ruin—played by Chloë Sevigny.
Read “How John Darnielle Ended Up on TV’s Poker Face,” over on the Pitch.
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The Mountain Goats: Jenny From Thebes
Jenny From Thebes:
01 Clean Slate
02 Ground Level
03 Only One Way
04 Fresh Tattoo
05 Cleaning Crew
06 Murder at the 18th St. Garage
07 From the Nebraska Plant
08 Same as Cash
09 Water Tower
10 Jenny III
11 Going to Dallas
12 Great Pirates
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