Release Date 19th August
In the depths of the pandemic at the end of 2020, Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle passed the time while trapped at home watching pulpy action movies, finding comfort in familiar tropes and sofabound escapism. This inspired him to pen the songs that make up Bleed Out, a song cycle about the allure and futility of vengeance and a cinematic experience in itself. Running narrative themes are not new to Mountain Goats projects, especially in recent years, be it the pro wrestlers of 2015’s Beat The Champ or the characters in 2017’s Goths. Darnielle was drawn to the antiheroes of the hard-boiled action flicks he was binge-watching, particularly the ways in which their quests for justice were almost all inevitably doomed. Bleed Out could be all one movie, telling typically vivid, deliberately recognizable vignettes of desperate characters in no-win situations who plan on taking as many people down with them as they have to. But Darnielle sees these as unconnected stories that feel universal in their desire for justice, if not in their wanton bloodshed.