The Mountain Goats’ latest album, Dark in Here, feels so timely that it’s hard to believe the band recorded it more than a year ago. According to the liner notes, John Darnielle and his bandmates bashed out these 12 tracks over six days in early March 2020. At that point, of course, COVID-19 had not killed more than 600,000 Americans, the outgoing President’s supporters had not attacked the U.S. Capitol, a massive snowstorm had not ravaged Texas, and so on.

It feels callous to call such events serendipitous, so just say this: With Dark in Here, The Mountain Goats deliver an album uniquely suited to these troubling times.

The album kicks off with “Parisian Enclave,” a terse, jaunty vignette about rats scurrying and surviving in the City of Lights. Darnielle’s manic guitar strumming and rapid-fire vocals might sound standard issue at first. However, a quick relisten to Tallahassee or All Hail West Texas will show just how supple and assured both have grown. As for the lyrics, anyone whose health and savings have taken hits recently may identify with those rodents who “collect the brine from the rain gutters” and have “spoors and plague deep down in our lungs.”

Next comes the ominous “The Destruction of the Superdeep Kola Borehole Tower.” Darnielle rattles off a list of steps to take in case of, presumably, the title disaster. Meanwhile, Jon Wurster’s drums rumble and crash as if that disaster is rapidly approaching.

The mellow “Mobile” lightens the mood. That is, until you pay attention to the lyrics, in which the song’s narrator muses about Jonah from the Old Testament while “waiting for the wind to throw me down.” However, Darnielle’s gentle croon, Spooner Oldham’s soothing organ playing and Will McFarlane’s glinting guitar evoke a calm summer evening instead of a raging storm.

Next up is the menacing title track, which warns of a looming, unspecified battle. Again, it’s hard not to picture the Capitol police fending off insurrectionists as Darnielle sings, “Pick a place to hide/ Check for signs of ambush/ Hunker down inside.” Whoever his foes may be, Darnielle tells them, “Stack my ammunition, be ready when you come.” Judging from Wurster’s rock-steady beat and McFarlane’s twangy fills, the rest of the band is battle-ready, too.

The protagonist of the jazzy and jittery “Lizard Beat” sounds much less confident as he struggles with big city life. Some wistful piano and nimble hi-hat carry him along, though, until the outro’s atonal freakout. The jazzy feel returns on “When a Powerful Animal Comes,” which soothes listeners’ nerves thanks to some of Darnielle’s all-time best singing. His breathy, gliding vocals are so beguiling that he might not even need Marie Tomlinson Lewey and Cindy Richardson Walker’s harmonies, lovely as they are.

The Mountain Goats stay cool on the next track as Darnielle croons “To the Headless Horseman.” The Horseman might kill him, but he keeps his head (for now): “And as you approached, I could sense the threat/ But a stranger’s just a friend who hasn’t shared his secrets yet.” The band picks up the tempo on “The New Hydra Collection,” laying down a mildly funky beat as Darnielle declares, “Someday, all of you people will know/ The safe way isn’t the only way to go.”

In Dark in Here’s liner notes, Darnielle singles out the ninth track, “The Slow Parts on Death Metal Albums,” as “probably the most directly confessional song of this bunch.” The wistful music is more Steely Dan than Slayer, but this reminiscence of the late-’80s Long Beach metal scene should strike a chord with anyone who’s sought an identity in a musical subculture.

On “Before I Got There,” the band gives the music a nice autumnal feel while Darnielle’s fragmented lyrics hint at loss and ruin. “Arguing with the Ghost of Peter Laughner about his Coney Island Baby Review” is not about Peter Laughner nor Lou Reed. Instead, it’s a touching tribute to late Silver Jews frontman David Berman.

On the album’s closer, “Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light,” the band swings contentedly as Darnielle celebrates the end times. In such dark days as these, the song suggests, you need to find the light where you can. That could serve as the “message” for Dark in Here as a whole.

Follow reporter Ben Shultz at Instagram.com/benjamin.schultz1.