The Mountain Goats

Overview

In 2014, John Darnielle's novel Wolf in White Van spent several weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List and was nominated for the National Book Award. On April 7, 2015 Darnielle and his band the Mountain Goats return with Beat the Champ, a collection of songs about professional wrestling.

"I wrote these songs to re-immerse myself in the blood and fire of the visions that spoke to me as a child, and to see what more there might be in them now that I'm grown," Darnielle says of Beat the Champ's 12 songs.

The Mountain Goats (John Darnielle, Peter Hughes, and Jon Wurster) have also announced their first round of shows in support of Beat the Champ.

Listen and share "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero" now. In addition, Joseph Fink of Welcome to Night Vale wrote a few words about the album, which you can read below.

Beat the Champ is available for pre-order now on CD, standard double-LP, and deluxe double-LP in the Merge store. The deluxe version will be pressed on limited-edition colored vinyl (gold and green) and include a bonus red vinyl 12-inch that features the non-album track "Blood Capsules" and a dub version of the same song on the B-side. Both the standard and deluxe LPs include a coupon for a full album download.