Mountaineer - Giving Up The Ghost (2022)

After making a huge splash with their 2020 release titled “Bloodletting”, Mountaineer achieves the impossible and unleashes an even more melancholic and more polished release with “Giving Up The Ghost”. For fans of Post-Rock/Doom/Shoegaze, this release delivers over 32 minutes of highly emotional and disharming music, creating a fully immersive atmosphere and a truly magical listening experience.

Opening with a mood setting instrumental, the band gets down to business with the dreamy “Blot Out the Sun”, filled with soaring vocal melodies (both harsh and clean) and very dynamic guitars, perfectly capturing the ‘Mountaineer vibe’ but further extending it with even more melancholy and sublime arrangements like we can hear in “Bed of Flower” or the The Ocean-esque “Touch the Glass”.

Both clean and harsh vocals work in perfect harmony as the guitars shift from heavy Doomy riffs to more refined shoegazey/Post-Rockish interludes as on the killer “When the Soul Sleeps”. Further surrendering the listener into the band’s mood, “Twin Flame” is another perfect example of the band’s unique aural experience.

Overall, “Giving Up The Ghost” is one of those nearly perfect releases, whose only flaw is that it should have been longer as we didn’t want it to end. The band continues to refine their sound and in this release they continue to push their boundaries with a well crafted set of tracks filled with emotion and brilliant execution. A solid recommendation for fans of both The Ocean and Mono, as the band touches on those influences with a ton of extra things to discover in the middle.

Label: LifeForce Records

Release: February 22nd, 2021

Genre: Doom/Sludge Metal/Post-Rock / Shoegaze

Country: USA