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Through This Fire

Across From Peter Balkan

THE NEW ALBUM FROM THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

Out November 7, 2025 on Cadmean Dawn Records and Tapes

A fishing boat, helmed by Captain Peter Balkan, sets sail from port with a crew of fifteen. In heavy waters on the open sea, the vessel keels over and is lost; only three of the crew survive. These three – Peter Balkan, a crewman named Adam, and an unnamed narrator – wash ashore on an islet too small and barren to sustain life. Captain Balkan, having sustained injury to his head in the wreck, begins to suffer great visions, prophesying the end of the world and the arrival of a new kingdom. As Balkan deteriorates, Adam goes missing, presumably drowned. The narrator is left to care for his captain in his final days. Alone, he imagines himself restored to society in the world before the wreck, vowing to remember his companions in catastrophe.

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Produced by the Mountain Goats’ multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan is a full-on musical that stands as the most conceptually detailed and musically elaborate project in the band’s ever-expanding catalog. It features appearances from The Replacements’ Tommy Stinson, harpist Mikaela Davis, musical theater royalty Lin-Manuel Miranda, and bassist Cameron Ralston.

1. Overture

2. Fishing Boat

3. Cold at Night

4. Dawn of Revelation

5. Your Bandage

6. Peru

7. Through This Fire

8. Rocks in My Pockets

9. Armies of the Lord

10. Your Glow

11. The Lady from Shanghai 2

12. Broken To Begin With

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Live Archive Vol. 1:

Going to Princeton (10/20/24)

Jon and Matt rolled on from Chicago in the bus but I stayed behind because there was a chance to see my favorite band in the world: Souled American. For two nights I watched them make magic in a small room, in the company of others like me, people who'd been waiting and hoping for a long time. The morning after Souled American's second show I went from hotel to cab to airport to a train that took me to the McCarter Theatre. There were pictures of all the people who'd played there in years past on the walls backstage. Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Cassandra Wilson. These are heroes of mine. We always try to be conscious of who's stood on a stage before we got there and to carry it forward a little. It was a special night in New Jersey.

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