Kreativ frontmann i The Mountain Goats, John Darnielle, dykker ned i bibelens poesi med musikalsk støtte fra Peter Hughes, Jon Wurster og Owen Pallett fra Final Fantasy. Ordet går til Darnielle selv: "The album was recorded between April and June: first at Electrical Audio with Brandon Eggleston; then at Sonic Ranch with John Congleton; and finally at Baucom Road with Scott Solter. Scott also mixed the entire album at Baucom Road. The band is still Jon Wurster, Peter Hughes, and me; Owen Pallett did string arrangments and played on the Electrical session. I guess the obvious question is going to be: "John, have you had some sort of religious awakening?" and while I guess lots of people might want to be coy about answering that, that's never really been my style, so: no. It's not like that. It's not some heavy-narrative-distance deal either, though, and it's not a screed. It's twelve songs the Bible taught me, kind of. More than that I'd want to wait to say until some people have heard it, which won't be long."