Anthem of the Peaceful Army

Anthem of the Peaceful Army, released by Lava/Republic on 19 October 2018, is Greta Van Fleet's first full-length album; Universal Music Japan put out its edition (UICU-1298) the same day. All four members share the writing of its ten songs. Marlon Young, Al Sutton and Herschel Boone, known together as The Rust Brothers, produced it, and it was recorded earlier that year at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and Rustbelt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan. The plan had been to use songs written three to five years earlier, but Sam Kiszka recalled that the material turned new almost at once: by his estimate about three quarters of it was written in the studio, and the whole job was done in two weeks. "Age of Man" was first demoed during a retreat at a mountain cabin near Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the lyrics of "Brave New World" grew out of one of Josh Kiszka's film scripts. Sam described it as a concept album, one that asks what people are doing to themselves, to their environment and to each other, and why there has to be hate and greed at all. "When the Curtain Falls" came out in July 2018, and on 26 July the band played it on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, their first television performance; "Watching Over" was released with the album announcement in September. The album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 3 with 87,000 units, 80,000 of them album sales, more than any other album sold that week. "When the Curtain Falls" and "You're the One" both went on to top Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart. The Japanese edition runs to fourteen tracks, adding all four songs of the Black Smoke Rising EP. In January 2019 the band brought the album to Japan for their first shows there: Zepp Osaka Bayside on the 22nd, Zepp DiverCity Tokyo on the 24th and Shinkiba Studio Coast on the 25th.