From Peter Hughes of the Mountain Goats: The theme this time around is goth, a subject closer to my heart perhaps than that of any Mountain Goats album previous. And while John writes the songs, as he always has, it feels more than ever like he’s speaking for all of us in the band, erstwhile goths (raises hand) or otherwise, for these are songs that approach an identity most often associated with youth from a perspective that is inescapably adult. Anyone old enough to have had the experience of finding oneself at sea in a cultural landscape that’s suddenly indecipherable will empathize with Pat Travers showing up to a Bauhaus show looking to jam, for example. But underneath the outward humor, there is evident throughout a real tenderness toward, and solidarity with, our former fellow travelers—the friends whose bands never made it out of Fender’s Ballroom, the Gene Loves Jezebels of the world—the ones whose gothic paths were overtaken by the realities of life, or of its opposite. It’s something we talk about a lot, how fortunate and grateful we are to share this work, a career that’s become something more rewarding and fulfilling than I think any of us could have imagined. We all know how easily it could’ve gone the other way, and indeed for a long time did.

Following the success of "We Shall All Be Healed", The Mountain Goats return with a third record for 4AD. "The Sunset Tree" was recorded by John Vanderslice at Prairie Sun Studios (a favorite haunt of Tom Waits, among others) in North Carolina. The album features long time collaborator Peter Hughes, along with Franklin Bruno, and acclaimed jazz cellist Eric Friedlander.

John Darnielle's songs have always dwelled on one or a combination of five subjects, relationship conflicts, flood, water, pre-Colombian Mexico mythology and talking animals. This record conjures paranoid visions of a couple permanently on the cusp of divorce who have remained drunk for so long, they're not sure of much else beyond the mutually destructive urge that holds their house together. Digipak. 4AD. 2002.