Anthem of the Peaceful Army is the debut studio album by American rock band Greta Van Fleet.

[6] The band found success with the releases, namely with the singles "Highway Tune" and "Safari Song", which both topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, for five and three weeks respectively.

[7][8] With the songs' success, they moved to record a full-length album, while still actively touring in support of the EPs.

[12] In the studio, the project became what Sam Kiszka admitted was a concept album that addressed ecological concerns as well as themes of hate, greed and evil.

According to Jake Kiszka he would stay up late at night editing and mixing and "very clearly" hear footsteps behind him that only stopped when he commanded them to.

When asked if this was intentional, Josh said "In some ways it was a bit of a wink..."[12] The album's first single, "When the Curtain Falls", was released in July 2018, along with the band promoting the song with their live national television debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

[17] The album's title, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, and release date, October 19, 2018, was announced in early September 2018.

[20][21] The day before the album came out, the band set up an online promotion that allowed users to listen to the song "Age of Man" if they walked to a local park and opened a link on their mobile phone.

[25] Classic Rock magazine strongly praised the album, concluding that it was "one of the most exciting records released by a new band in recent years...partly a result of the amount of money and attention that's being thrown at them – this is the first time in years that a rock band has been given a genuine fighting chance by a major label – but it's mostly down to the youthful, unmanufacturable exhilaration that courses through its 10 tracks.

"[28] Conversely, Esquire reasoned that "the state of guitar music in general [had] been waiting for another Black Keys or Kings of Leon to come along to revive interest in a rapidly aging sound," explaining the praise towards the album, but the actual music was "bad and [the band's] entire aesthetic feels disingenuous" because it was released by a major label.

[35] Jeremy D. Larson of Pitchfork heavily criticized the album, calling it "half-baked boomer fetishism" and an "interminable 49-minute drag.