Conceptually the most elaborate of their 23 albums, ‘Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan’ sees The Mountain Goats embark on a full-blown musical. It tells of a small crew consisting of Captain Peter Balkan, Adam and an unnamed narrator who are stranded on a desert island. Their struggle for survival amidst declining resources and terrible visions is seasoned with the depth and detail that can be expected from band leader, John Darnielle, who is also a National Book Award nominated author. Musically, it has a sophistication that would be inconceivable to anyone only familiar with their early lo-fi, rudimentary releases and utilises a palette that expands way beyond bass, guitar and drums to accommodate harp, strings, woodwinds, synth and pedal steel. To further emphasise its credentials as a musical, it even includes backing vocals from Lin-Manuel Miranda on four of its songs.
The twelve tracks that comprise the album begin with ‘Overture’, the first instrumental The Mountain Goats have ever released. It gives a glimpse of the record’s musical scope, from a synth beginning to an elegant keyboard motif, grand drum patterns and exquisite strings, it makes a fantastic prelude to the emotional wreckage of its journey.
The story begins with ‘Fishing Boat’. Darnielle’s vocal style is that of an understated narrator explaining the action, capturing the chance to “be your own boss for a day”. In one verse, he skilfully sketches characteristics of the crew. The music initially sits happily as a backdrop while Darnielle sings but then captures the drama of riptide and those string and woodwind arrangements courtesy of Matt Douglas are one of the album’s most stirring features.
Of course, a reason that novelists and filmmakers are often tempted by shipwrecks is the opportunity both to reflect on how humans respond to catastrophe and its wider implications. Darnielle maximises these opportunities so the album has themes of adventure, optimism, folly, the lies we tell ourselves, the brutality of nature and most of all mortality. ‘Cold At Night’ positively notes how “the first thing you learn is how strong you can be if you have to” but also places the staples of genre fiction in a modern context observing that “nobody thought to carry a compass / it’s not the 19th Century anymore” while pizzicato strings punctuate the drama.
There is a biblical quality to a couple of the songtitles, ‘Dawn of Revelation’ adding to that imagery with the narrator’s assertion, “I will turn these stones to bread / all who hunger will be fed.” That delusional outlook is backed by the album’s most rocking music full of Jon Wurster’s pounding drums, forceful guitars and big but wordless choruses from the Latter Revelation Company Singers. In contrast, ‘Your Bandage’ is gentler, although the early optimism that “there’s gold inside the Jetstream” is later replaced by the acceptance that “one day all the stars will go out.”
Despite the dire situation of brother turning against brother, there is humour in the opening observation to the musically serene ‘Peru’: “You were already talking when I woke up today / for a man on combat rations, you sure do find a lot to say.” Forty-five days into their ordeal, on ‘Through This Fire’ the narrator is nursing his companion and acknowledging that in a week they will both be gone but the vocal delivery and string arrangement is serene. ‘Rocks In My Pocket’ is especially poignant in its reflections upon pending death, Mikaela Davis’s harp embellishments providing an extra frisson.
Although the title ‘Armies of the Lord’ suggests religiosity, it is another treatise on death from its opening macabre lines, “trying to pantomime surprise / as we buried you at sunrise.” There is a bleakly ironic humour throughout that makes what could have been a morbid story into something less distressing. To twinkly synths, ‘Your Glow’ contemplates ambition and whether man can have any goal beyond being king. Aside from having a title that references Darnielle’s early boombox era, ‘The Lady from Shanghai 2’ has an especially pleasing arrangement from its soft shoe jazz shuffle to its woodwind flourishes while the narrator muses on the fortune that has seen a boy who sought the shadows ending up on the open seas and has a flip sided contentment to its chorus, “everything that sinks must float.”
The story ends with ‘Broken To Begin With’, a boisterous tune with horn punctuation that crams plenty of reflection into its three minutes from its opening couplet, “Men of old who sailed the seas / bringing nations to their knees.” In contrast to old dreams of conquest the current narrator is happy to welcome oblivion, the song finishing abruptly by looping back to the third track on its realisation that “the next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night.”
With ‘Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan’, John Darnielle confirms his place at the pinnacle alongside Willy Vlautin of The Delines and Colin Meloy of The Decemberists as longform writers who bring their novelistic prowess and detail to song form. While the storytelling is of necessity at the forefront of the album and all the words are delivered with clarity, the musical arrangements are so exquisite that a listener with no knowledge of English ought to still derive great enjoyment from the record.
The Mountain Goats: Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan – Out 7 November 2025 (Cadmean Dawn Records)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
