aaamusic | On 11, Feb 2011

The Mountain Goats have announced the dates for their UK tour:

Sunday 22nd May – Dublin, Whelans  (www.ticketmaster.ie / www.tickets.ie)
Tuesday 24th May – Brighton, Coalition  (www.ticketweb.co.uk / www.seetickets.com)
Wednesday 25th May – London, KOKO  (www.ticketweb.co.uk )
Friday 27th May – Manchester, Academy 3  (www.gigsandtours.com)
Saturday 28th May – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club (www.jumborecords.co.uk)
Sunday 29th May – Glasgow, King Tuts  (www.gigsinscotland.com)
Monday 30th May – Newcastle, Cluny ( www.ticketweb.co.uk)

New album, All Eternals Deck will be released on the 4th April on Tomlab in the UK.

Speaking about the record, singer/songwriter, John Darnielle explains, “The songs cluster around themes of hidden things and the dread that hidden things inspire, but also the excitement, the attraction, the magnetic draw that scary unknown hidden things exert.”  The title refers to an apocryphal tarot deck, though Darnielle explains that the album’s fascination with the occult originates in having run across the word “occult” in a textbook in his nursing-student days. “’Occult’ just means ‘hidden’ or ‘not immediately obvious’ in medical terminology.  There was a nursing directive to be aware of ‘occult blood.’ I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever heard,” he says.

In 2010, the band signed to Merge Records, head-quartered within walking distance of Darnielle’s Durham, North Carolina home.  The band approached recording sessions for All Eternals Deck as commando raids on multiple studios with several producers: four songs at North Carolina’s Fidelitorium with John Congleton; one at Q Division in Boston with long-time sound-man, Brandon Eggleston; four at Brooklyn’s Mission Sound with Scott Solter; and four at Mana Recording Studios in Florida, with Morbid Angel guitarist and Hate Eternal helmsman, Erik Rutan.

“We wanted to see how disparate seasons and moods and locations and producers would play out in the songs,” explains Darnielle. The result? “If you’ve ever watched, say, a 70s occult-scare movie where one of the scenes involves a few people visiting a store front fortune teller, getting their cards read, and then they’re trying to feel super-hopeful about their predicted outcome when what they’re visibly actually feeling is dread, then you have a pretty decent idea of what this album is all about.”

Check out the opening track,  Damn These Vampires from the album.