Band:	Mountaineer
Album:	Giving Up The Ghost
Style:	Shoegaze, Doom metal, Post-metal
Release date:	February 25, 2022
A review by:	RaduP

01. The Ghost
02. Blot Out The Sun
03. Bed Of Flowers
04. Touch The Glass
05. When The Soul Sleeps
06. Twin Flame
07. Giving Up

I guess it's time to admit that doomgaze might soon have as big of a share of the metalgaze market as blackgaze does.

But I guess that only counts if you think dronegaze is also a subgenre of doomgaze. Ok, you might be asking yourself what the hell is this gaze we're talking about and why does every metal genre try to get one. Well, not every metal genre, I have yet to hear a thrashgaze album. But it's became apparent that shoegaze (an alternative rock subgenre characterized mostly by ethereal walls of sounds) has had some hand in metal's evolution since the turn of the century. Stuff like Deftones is not really as relevant to our discussion, but shoegaze started infiltrating doom territories first through it's drone counterpart, with Jesu, The Angellic Process, and Nadja all exhibiting similar characteristics. In the meantime, a more black metal version started developing, thanks to bands like Alcest or Deafheaven, and for a long while, that blackgaze sound was all the rage, and it pretty much encapsulated all metalgaze discussion. And, I mean, it still does, since our latest nominees in the metalgaze category for the MSA all fall in this category.

And part of it is definitely because, since blackgaze was so popular last decade, it kinda shifted our perception of what metalgaze is, so a lot of doomgaze stuff either was considered more as heavy shoegaze than actual metal, or considered for other categories (like alt, post, doom). I seem to remember Mountaineer's previous album specifically, because I reviewed and loved it, making it to post instead. And, I mean, that's not wrong. It's also a post-metal album. But my point is that it may be deceiving to think that doomgaze is less of a significant force because of how we're used to interacting with blends of metal and shoegaze, which is a point I've made before. And now we finally arrive at Giving Up The Ghost.

Mountaineer's Bloodletting was a warm post-metal album, drenched in a shoegaze sounds that was a mix of multiple other 90s sounds like dream pop and neo-psychedelia. But on Giving Up The Ghost, it feels like that blend is sharpened a bit and the balance in tilted even further in shoegaze's direction, making me think that if this was the debut, it would be more likely that Giving Up The Ghost would fall under the "heavy shoegaze" rather than "metal subgenre with some shoegaze influence" part of the equation. Even so, there are still moments that are unquestionably post-metal, with the bulky screams that one would expect from post-metal, and the thick riffing, but most of the time, they're so layered with ethereal fuzz, and the vocals take a harmonious dreamy vibe.

Giving Up The Ghost is on the shorter side, almost feeling more like an EP, but within that half hour, it's completely tranquilizing and alluring. To the point where it actually feels cut short, and when it ends I'm not done being engulfed by its atmosphere. And a further replay only makes the experience ten minutes longer than Bloodletting. I feel like Mountaineer are really getting the hang on the clean side of the sound, with the choruses still lingering in my mind, probably also a side-effect of the short length. With the songs finding just the right balance between instant gratification and slow-burning buildups, they managed to make a very rewarding experience, and something that would hopefully shift the metalgaze Overton window back towards doom.