The Mountain Goats announce Days with Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds

The Mountain Goats have announced Days, launching the new album with the wonderfully John Darnielle-like single Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds. The announcement remains a strong indie news item for 18 May because few bands can turn a title like that into something that feels funny, literary and emotionally dangerous at the same time.

Days reportedly began as a possible sequel to Goths before changing shape during a concentrated writing period. The album explores memory, time and the emotional residue of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which is classic Mountain Goats territory: specific references on the surface, deeper human weather underneath. The track titles alone sound like short stories that got trapped in a record collection.

Produced by John Congleton at Sear Sound in Manhattan, the record also arrives after a period of transition for the band, including the departure of longtime bassist Peter Hughes in 2024. For indie readers, The Mountain Goats remain important because they prove that literate songwriting does not have to become stiff or academic. Darnielle still writes like someone chasing ghosts through liner notes, old neighborhoods and half-remembered cultural debris. Source: https://pitchfork.com/news/the-mountain-goats-new-album-days-charlie-sheen-reaches-out-to-the-feds