The Life of the World to Come

The Life of the World to Come is the twelfth studio album by the Mountain Goats, released by 4AD on October 6, 2009. The third track, "Genesis 3:23", was released as a free download via the band's website on July 28. The album peaked at #110 on the Billboard Top 200 albums on its chart debut.

The Life of the World to Come is a concept album in which John Darnielle draws inspiration from specific verses of the Bible. The twelve tracks of the album are each inspired by (and titled after) a single verse from either the Jewish Tanakh (that is, the Christian Old Testament) or the Christian New Testament. The album's title comes from a line of the Nicene Creed.

Early copies of the album sold via Rough Trade's physical and online stores featured a bonus CD-R, The Life of the World in Flux. It contains early drafts of most of the songs which appear on the main album and four extra songs that do not, and has some stylistic resemblances to both the band's pre-2002 'lo-fi' albums and to the 2005 The Sunset Tree LP. 2010 saw the release of The Life of the World to Come: A Film by Rian Johnson, in which American filmmaker Rian Johnson films a Claremont, California performance by Darnielle of the entire album, mostly solo on piano and guitar, but joined by former Mountain Goat Rachel Ware on several songs.