Racing Mount Pleasant is the self-titled second[a] album by American indie band Racing Mount Pleasant. Following on from their 2022 album Grip Your Fist, I'm Heaven Bound, it was released on August 15, 2025 on the record label R&R, and was preceded by three singles. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who frequently compared it to the work of Black Country, New Road, Arcade Fire, and Bon Iver.
Racing Mount Pleasant formed under the name Kingfisher in 2019 at the University of Michigan;[4] in November 2022, they released their debut album Grip Your Fist, I'm Heaven Bound.[5] On April 9, 2025, they changed their name to Racing Mount Pleasant, coinciding with the release of the single "Call It Easy".[6] On May 9, they released a second single, the self-titled "Racing Mount Pleasant";[7] it was written before the band's name change.[3] They also announced that they would be releasing an album on the record label R&R.[7] The single "Your New Place" was released on July 11, accompanied by the announcement that Racing Mount Pleasant would be released on August 15.[8]
Racing Mount Pleasant were inspired by memories and looking back on the band's history while composing Racing Mount Pleasant, creating what Stereogum describes as a "miniverse".[3] There are references to other songs throughout the lyrics, instrumentals, and song titles;[3][1] for example, the melody of "Your New Place" is repeated on the closing track, "Your Old Place".[1] The album was recorded in at least six different spaces, such as the attic of a house that some of the band members lived in, as well as in a church.[3]
Reception
Racing Mount Pleasant received generally positive reviews from critics. In a review for The New Yorker, Hanif Abdurraqib drew comparisons between the album and the poem "Katy" by Frank O'Hara, stating that the band had become "quieter and also less silent" since their debut (a reference to the fifth line of "Katy").[4] Abdurraqib did not feel like he had learnt anything by listening to the album, as many of the themes were "unspectacular", but felt "delighted by the experience nonetheless".[4] David Renshaw of The Fader praised the album's "grand crescendos fit for cavernous arenas", describing "Your New Place" as "like a garage rock band swapping the dive bar for an orchestra pit".[9] In her interview article of the band for Stereogum, Margaret Farrell applauded the album's ability to evoke memories of the past, stating that "these songs move like memory: animated, all-encompassing, unpredictable".[3] Ian Cohen's review for Pitchfork was much more mixed; he praised the "panoramic sweep of post-rock" on "Your New Place", but disliked that the album was too similar to bands such as Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, and Black Country, New Road, stating "it sounds like a group working hard to make a cathartic, cleansing instant classic of [an album], but one drawn from memory".[1] Cohen also believed that songs such as "You" and "Call It Easy" didn't have a compelling narrator, describing them as "glacial". However, he concluded that "bands and albums of this nature don't come around all that often".[1]
↑ Some sources describe Racing Mount Pleasant as their debut album, due to the band changing their name;[1][2] they released one album under the name Kingfisher.[3]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
