The Mountain Goats Announces Dungeons & Dragons-Inspired Album

American rock band The Mountain Goats has just announced a new album called In League With Dragons, inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, and set for release on April 26th.

My favorite quote from that NPR interview, "I am earnestly hoping that a new genre called "dragon noir" will spring from the forehead of nearly two years' work on these songs, but, if not, I am content for this to be the sole example of the style."

And the song they include is excellent in my opinion. Very D&D.

YOUNGER

[Verse 1]
Crank that siren high
Drain the wellspring dry
Map out your coordinates
Send out scouts by day
Dole out mercenary pay
For restless young subordinates

It never hurts to give thanks to the local gods
You never know who might be hungry
It never hurts to scan the windows on the upper floor
I saw a face there once before when I was younger

[Verse 2]
Set the torch aflame
Call the night by name
Stake out your dark position
Lie in wait
By the gleaming city gate
Try not to lose sight of the mission

It never hurts to give thanks to the broken bones
You had to use to build your ladder

[Verse 3]
Moment close at hand
Half of you will never understand
And it doesn't really matter
Big smile on my face
Capsule just in case
Underneath my tongue

Voices on the breeze
I heard voices once like these when I was younger

[Bridge]
Blood rushing to my face
I know that sweet warm taste
And the bitter trace

[Verse 4]
Storm right down that hill
If I don’t, no one will
Follow me right through the chaos
This whole house is doomed
Even the big parts get consumed
Prepare a grave for Menelaus

It never hurts to give thanks to the navigator
Even when he's spitting out random numbers

I knew what those figures meant
And what they hoped to represent
When I was younger
[Outro: saxophone solo]

 

[Gradine]

I'm a huge fan of The Mountain Goats; if anybody happens to be looking for a new podcast, you could do a lot worse than I Only Listen to The Mountain Goats, which features Night Vale creator Joseph Fink and John Darnielle (singer/songwriter for The Mountain Goats) talking about art and storytelling. If you dig their music at all I'd highly suggest checking it out.

My understanding (which came second-hand from my partner, in any case) is that the album is meant to be something more akin to a rock opera (so telling a single story over the entire album) in which case, I think this song makes a pretty compelling intro/framing device; a singer reminiscing back to the D&D games of their youth. This is the most exciting D&D-related news for me since Eberron dropped on the DM's Guild.

As an aside, I sometimes wish I had an ear for metal, but for a number of reasons it's just so much noise to me. Part of that might be guilt by association, but I think a lot of it has to do with my age; I'm of a generation and background that skipped over metal completely. I simultaneously feel both too old and too young for it.

 

[Birmy]

This makes sense, as Darnielle has always had pretty strong nerd tendencies ("Lovecraft in Brooklyn," anyone?). They haven't done an outright D&D album yet, but the band Thee Oh Sees has albums called Orc and Carrion Crawler; they're extremely prolific, so I'm convinced they'll eventually just check off everything in the Monster Manual for their album titles.

 

[lyle.spade]

I will take you under my wing, Gradine, and will help you learn the ways of Metal.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I had never heard of them before reading this, and so I listened to a snippet of their stuff on Amazon. If you're not familiar with them, they are a folksy mostly unplugged acoustic guitar-driven outfit with mostly slow songs. To me, RPGs, especially of the fantasy genre, will always be best scored with Metal. This stuff reminds me of the music that drove Bluto Blutarsky to smash that guy's guitar on the stairwell at the Delta house.

If you like Lesbian Seagull, you'll dig the Mountain Goats.
[video=youtube;4BaKOluofCA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BaKOluofCA[/video]

...and after watching that video, I think many of you reading it will recognize the ATF team is just a group of PC Murder Hobos, on the job. Good stuff - solving problems the way players often do.

They’ve a couple/few hundred songs, so it’s possible you just heard the slowest, most low key songs they have.

Alternatively: [video=youtube;MrHgZRGLgo0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHgZRGLgo0[/video]

Or: [video=youtube_share;anS6bcPpvoQ]https://youtu.be/anS6bcPpvoQ[/video]

Or even: [video=youtube_share;O66L5G9ccH8]https://youtu.be/O66L5G9ccH8[/video]

 

[lyle.spade]

They’ve a couple/few hundred songs, so it’s possible you just heard the slowest, most low key songs they have.

Alternatively: [video=youtube;MrHgZRGLgo0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHgZRGLgo0[/video]

Or: [video=youtube_share;anS6bcPpvoQ]https://youtu.be/anS6bcPpvoQ[/video]

Or even: [video=youtube_share;O66L5G9ccH8]https://youtu.be/O66L5G9ccH8[/video]

Thank you.

 

[MockingBird]

I always attributed prog rock to D&D or fantasy in general. Most of the band Yes' album artwork can inspire your imagination.

 

[lyle.spade]

I always attributed prog rock to D&D or fantasy in general. Most of the band Yes' album artwork can inspire your imagination.

Spot-on, MB. A collection of Yes and Kansas album covers alone are enough to inspire some adventures.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

As for metal as the soundtrack of dnd...eeeehh. I love metal, but I’m not tryin to write or run adventures while listening to the dude from Eluveitie scream and growl stuff I can’t even understand. So, for me, metal is quite hit or miss for dnd music.

I frequently get inspired by TMG for dnd characters and stories, though, along with a wide range of other bands and artists.

Hell, I’ve got two characters whose internal struggle and tragedy is best summarized by Ed Sheeran songs! (Castle On The Hill for my halfling warlock who can never go home like he dreams of doing, and I See Fire for my Gnomish sailor whose crew were murdered by a necromancer)

Another, my Eberron Shadar-Kai monk is perhaps best summarized by two AFI songs (Prelude 20/21 is for his days as a gladiatorial slave, and So Beneath You for his disdain of gods and their churches. So Beneath You is also the perfect song for any Blood of Vol Seeker) and a song by Kyla La Grange called Vampire Smile, about being dangerous to those whom you want to be near.

My wife’s characters are like 98% metal, though.

 

[lyle.spade]

Eberron? I believe that the theme song to the Mourning is Gojira's "From the Sky." Listen to that and imagine a wavefront of magic fire and fury blasting across the landscape, engulfing and blowing over things.

 

[reelo]

Bal-Sagoth: To Dethrone The Witch-Queen Of Mytos K'Unn (The Legend Of The Battle Of Blackhelm Vale)



O' grim gods of battle, empower us this night...
Anoint us with the crimson rain, feed our steel with slaughter...
Let every blow be a killing blow, grant us victory, or a warrior's death.
Come, moon-fogs, Descend to cloak our numbers, the heady scent of battle
beckons,
My ash-hafted spear feels good in my hands, girt 'round with spells (our flesh
gloriously) woad anointed,
Ravens awaiting slaughter soar high above, blood-worms bloat on red carnage,
I'll carve the moon-wheel in their flesh, as havoc churns the heather!

A swirling mantle of mist-magic swathes us, powerful spells woven by the
fen-witches of the great mere... Deep night and moon-mist shall be our allies
as we surge into the fray! At my bidding, the fog clears for a brief moment,
and I gaze down upon the v alley to behold the army of the Witch-Queen...
great tents arrayed upon the heather, powerful steeds tethered, the light from
countless burning brands illumining the night, many warriors standing, weapons
in hand... aye, all sword fodder.

Entwined in war-fogs...
Entwined by war-spells...
Blessed in blood as raven-saters, slake the thirst of steel burning bright,
Reap the harvest of spilled entrails, we'll return with many heads this night.
The death-ravening black fury fills me,
The spatter of hot blood seet on my lips,
This yard of steel sings a deadly song in my grasp!
Cleaving bodies left and right, a head falls with each swing of my blade,
A storm of shafts screaming form yew-bows, (through their armoured ranks we
shall) carve a path with steel, a blood-drenched swath!

And the thirst of the earth shall be slaked with blood at the fields of
carnage...
A staggering sea of crimson, a towering mountain of ravaged flesh,
All enraptured by the searing kiss of steel,
All surfeit from supping deep of the grim chalice of battle...

Brooding gods of the north, display to these outlander thralls thine ire,
Envenom our blades with the death-kiss of a thousand serpents,
Unfetter the dread war-wolves within us,
That their claws may rend, and their jaws may be reddened.

The bloodying is at hand!
My spear hammers into the chest of a warrior, and bright blood erupts
from his lips as he falls to the heather. I turn aside a vicious swordthrust
and my own blade snakes out to cleave the neck of the attacker, shearing
through his veins in a shower of d ark red. An enemy blade opens my shoulder
to the bone, but I sweep my axe out in a deadly arc, its iron head rending
armour and biting deep into flesh. Talus Ebonfyre's abdomen yawns open and he
staggers back as his intestines spew forth in a pulsing mas s. I sunder his
head with another blow as he falls and his skull yields to spill its steaming
contents to the earth. As I watch, a writhing, shadowy form rises from the
smitten corpse of the Witch-Queen's warlord and flees howling into the
night... I vau lt to the saddle of a riderless black war-horse and seize the
banner of Mytos-K'unn... for every one of us that has fallen, we have taken
five of the enemy screaming with us... the battle is ours!

Bright moon, gleam o'er moor and heather, wood and vale, deep fen and
lake, Grim mountains crowned with snows, great rings of stones, black 'neath
the stars, The storms extol our ancient glory, great mounds feed us, power
from the sacred earth. With faith and steel we walk our shadowed paths, our
blood runs as fire, swords blessed by sorcery.

Wolves of the north, raise thine steel to the skies, revel in the pride of
your wounds,
Let our victory-song ride the winds of this blood-gorged eve,
For on this night of red swords we have wrought a legend,
Forged in the fires of our rage, and tempered with the spilled blood of the
slain...

O' grim gods of battle, empower us this night and always,
Anoint us with the crimson rain, forever feed our steel with slaughter...
Let every blow be a killing blow, grant us eternal victory, 'til we die a
warrior's death.