The Life of the World to Come (album)

The Life of the World to Come is the twelfth studio album by the Mountain Goats, released on October 6, 2009. The third track, "Genesis 3:23", was released as a free download via the band's website on July 28. The album peaked at #110 on the Billboard Top 200 albums on its chart debut.

Continuing in their exploration of religious themes, The Life of the World to Come is composed of twelve tracks, each one inspired by (and titled after) a single verse from the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian New Testament. The album's title comes from a line of the Nicene Creed.

Early copies of the album sold via Rough Trade's physical and online stores featured a bonus CD-R, The Life of the World in Flux. It contains early drafts of most of songs which appears on the main album and some that do not, and stylistically resembles both the band's pre-2002 albums and the 2005 The Sunset Tree LP.

Reception
The album was positively reviewed by critics, gaining 78/100 points on Metacritic. Pitchfork Media listed it as 45th best of the year, adding that album is "a work of deep, profound empathy-- the kind of thing the Bible is supposed to teach us in the first place".

As of October 2009 it has sold 14,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Personnel

 * John Darnielle - acoustic guitar, vocals, piano, keyboards
 * Owen Pallett - strings, arrangement
 * Peter Hughes - bass, electric guitar
 * Jon Wurster - drums, percussion
 * Vaughan Oliver - art direction, design
 * Phoebe Richardson - artwork
 * Brian Whitehead - assistant design
 * Scott Solter - mixing
 * Marc Atkins - photography
 * Brandon Eggleston - production, engineering (Chicago)
 * Grégoire Yeche - assistant production, assistant engineering (Chicago)
 * John Congleton - production, engineering (Tornillo)
 * Charles Godfrey - assistant production, assistant engineering (Tornillo)
 * Scott Solter - production, engineering (Monroe)