Mountaineer - Dawn and All That Follows (2024)

Just like clockwork, The Bay Area’s Mountaineer returns after 2 years with their latest opus in melancholy titled “Dawn and All That Follows”. Not on LifeForce records this time, the band unleashes a hefty 50-minute release split into eight highly engaging and very dreamy tracks. For the uninitiated, the band’s mellow sound combines elements of Post-Rock/Post-Metal with some shoegazey influences and highly melancholic clean vocals, creating a very crafty and highly atmospheric release.

Opening with the devastating “Cradlesong”, the band quickly unleashes their powerful riffs alongside a thick and demoralizing atmosphere, perfectly paced to inflict maximum pain as the mopey clean vocals of Miguel Meza come into play. There are definitely some crafty Doom/Sludge influences in the band’s sound, as tracks like “Hypnos” and “Prism” continue to develop the crushingly melancholic atmosphere, similar to Katatonia, but more ‘alternative’.

As our favorite song, the album title track has that bleak progression with lush Post-Rock/Metal arrangements and very cathartic progression. Definitely one of the best songs from this band. Continuing the onslaught, “Testimonial”, “You Will Always Be One of Us”, and “Dark Passenger” offer more engaging tempo changes, and even some harsh vocals to keep things far from linear and the listener always guessing. The band’s atmospheric guitar sound is definitely their signature, and they are not afraid to push it even further in this release.

Closing the album oozing of despain and melancholy, “Parallels” is another standout track, filled with lush vocal arrangements and a very slow but will developed progression to an abrupt catharsis. Mountaineer has nearly perfected melancholic Post-Metal/Rock/Doom-whatever with this release. All the elements of their previous albums are here, but with an extra dose of melancholy and magic that only these guys can deliver. Be prepared to be smitten by such a masterful release.

Label: A Thousand Arms Music (US) and Dunk!records (EU)

Release: July 26th, 2024

Genre: Post-Rock/Metal Metal / Doom/Slugde Metal

Country: USA