Included in:

-Paste's Best Albums of 2015 (#11)

-PopMatter's Best Albums of 2015 (#29)

-Paste's Best Songs of 2015 (#3 "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero")

-PopMatter's Best Songs of 2015 (#21 "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero")

-Stereogum's Top Music Videos of 2015 (#49 "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero")



Beat the Champ is about professional wrestling, which was an avenue of escape for me when I was a kid. Wrestling was low-budget working class entertainment back then, strictly UHF material. It was cheap theater. You had to bring your imagination to the proceedings and you got paid back double. I wrote these songs to re-immerse myself in the blood and fire of the visions that spoke to me as a child, and to see what more there might be in them now that I'm grown.

— John Darnielle, Durham, NC

LPs include a coupon for a full download.