Racing Mount Pleasant: Racing Mount Pleasant (2LP) [R&R DIGITAL]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set gives the 57-minute album room to breathe. Paste called it a "sprawling but self-assured" concept album, and The Fader praised its grand crescendos.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Poster included
• Obi strip

About the album

The band's name comes from a misreading. Driving near Chicago, someone spotted a highway exit sign for Racine and Mount Pleasant, two towns in Wisconsin, and it stuck. The seven-piece formed at the University of Michigan in 2019 as Kingfisher, put out a debut in 2022 and took on the new name in April 2025 with the single "Call It Easy."

Sam DuBose writes the words and leads on guitar, piano and vocals, with two saxophones, trumpet, flute and strings filling out a sound critics have compared to Black Country, New Road, Bon Iver and Explosions in the Sky. The songs were written across the band's whole life and recorded in at least six spaces, including an attic and a church. According to Paste, the album circles two memories of a relationship, waking up beside someone and visiting them after a breakup, and the melody of the opener "Your New Place" returns in the closer "Your Old Place." "Seminary" adds trombone, and the title track was written before the name change.

In 2025 they opened for Geese and Cameron Winter, and the album reached No. 29 on the UK Record Store Chart. They sometimes ask audiences to sit down at shows, the most considerate thing a rock band has done since earplugs.

Also at Kops: more Racing Mount Pleasant on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On R&R, the 2025 album.