#a-thousand-arms-music — Public Fediverse posts

Black Narcissus – There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten Review

By Killjoy

It’s often impossible to convey feelings with words, so it’s sometimes better not to try. This certainly appears to be the philosophy of Black Narcissus, an instrumental post-rock duo from Belgium comprised of bassist Jesse Massant and drummer Thomas Wuyts. While instrumental groups are hardly uncommon, especially in this genre, Black Narcissus is unique in that bass and drums are the only tools they use to construct their interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. These two vital, stalwart instruments can often be overshadowed by the flashy vocal and multi-guitar antics commonplace in rock and metal. How bright can they shine in a setting where they possess the spotlight by default?

Black Narcissus’ main goal is to cultivate an environment where individual emotional responses can freely blossom. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is teeming with ethereal, evocative melodies sounding like the result of cross-pollination between earlier Explosions in the Sky and Alcest’s Les Voyages de L’Âme era.1 As this description might suggest, there is little resembling heaviness aside from stray blast beats and thick, reverb-drenched bass chords. But those who share our Overlord’s cynical views regarding the role of reverb in atmospheric music needn’t worry; in this case, it’s not a crutch to force a specific mood. Rather, the rich moods naturally wax and wane through masterful musical arrangements, developed enough to easily latch onto yet ambiguous enough to leave room for personal interpretation. Black Narcissus recognizes that, like in nature, there is beauty in simplicity, and all are welcome to partake.

Mother Nature may recycle her resources but Black Narcissus doesn’t recycle ideas. Both players continually explore different melodies and tempos, like walking past one tree after another, each unique but part of a singular forest. Massant’s bass lines gently cascade during “In Throes of Increasing Wonder” and ripple in “Draped in Ivy, Guilded by Time” as if in response to Wuyts’ syncopated crashes like raindrops hitting a pond surface. I can’t stress enough how much the drumming thrives in this partnership. Wuyts takes full advantage of the music’s free-flowing character to play one intricate rhythm after another, seemingly using the entirety of his drum kit on a regular basis. The music is further enriched by the warm and whimsical tones of an upright bass—Massant proving to be an expert bassist in more than one sense—which cast a folksy cinematic tint onto tracks such as “On This Twilight Evening” and “These Hands That Build.”

The reluctance of Black Narcissus to linger long in any one place does not mean that they abandon streams of thought prematurely. They provide ample space for each musical passage to gradually bloom and disperse seeds to transition to the next as effortlessly as the passage of time. Time, though, is largely irrelevant here. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten lasts for exactly one hour, but it could have been either half or twice as long and remained equally entrancing. Therefore, it works best if the listener is willing to surrender any dispositions toward customary song structures and witness a forest grow at its pleasure with no concern for the orderliness of man. To this end, the production sounds fantastic. The bass lines, often layered atop one another, are easily audible; each cymbal tap, tom beat, and snare hit sounds crisp and satisfying. My only minuscule grievance is when a spoken word sample in “At the Mercy of Men with No Mercy at All” interrupts immersion by lasting too long, but the other samples throughout the album are used more sparingly.

There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is an aural treat I could never have been prepared for. I selected an instrumental album because I thought it would help me focus during a busy period in my day job, but it gave me way more than I bargained for. While it does make for pleasant background music, it becomes increasingly rewarding the more time and attention are invested. It’s truly an album to become lost in, each hauntingly beautiful song a great companion for many different moods and activities. After five paragraphs of inadequate efforts to describe its majestic sound, I have to admit that Black Narcissus is correct: words are of little value in this realm. So, if you haven’t already, press play and hear the magic for yourself.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Dunk! Records (EU) | A Thousand Arms Music (US)
Websites: blacknarcissusband.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/blacknarcissusband
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

#2025 #45 #AThousandArmsMusic #Alcest #BelgianMetal #BlackNarcissus #DunkRecords #ExplosionsInTheSky #Feb25 #Instrumental #InstrumentalMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #ThereLingersOneWhoSLongForgotten

Black Narcissus – There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten Review

By Killjoy

It’s often impossible to convey feelings with words, so it’s sometimes better not to try. This certainly appears to be the philosophy of Black Narcissus, an instrumental post-rock duo from Belgium comprised of bassist Jesse Massant and drummer Thomas Wuyts. While instrumental groups are hardly uncommon, especially in this genre, Black Narcissus is unique in that bass and drums are the only tools they use to construct their interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. These two vital, stalwart instruments can often be overshadowed by the flashy vocal and multi-guitar antics commonplace in rock and metal. How bright can they shine in a setting where they possess the spotlight by default?

Black Narcissus’ main goal is to cultivate an environment where individual emotional responses can freely blossom. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is teeming with ethereal, evocative melodies sounding like the result of cross-pollination between earlier Explosions in the Sky and Alcest’s Les Voyages de L’Âme era.1 As this description might suggest, there is little resembling heaviness aside from stray blast beats and thick, reverb-drenched bass chords. But those who share our Overlord’s cynical views regarding the role of reverb in atmospheric music needn’t worry; in this case, it’s not a crutch to force a specific mood. Rather, the rich moods naturally wax and wane through masterful musical arrangements, developed enough to easily latch onto yet ambiguous enough to leave room for personal interpretation. Black Narcissus recognizes that, like in nature, there is beauty in simplicity, and all are welcome to partake.

Mother Nature may recycle her resources but Black Narcissus doesn’t recycle ideas. Both players continually explore different melodies and tempos, like walking past one tree after another, each unique but part of a singular forest. Massant’s bass lines gently cascade during “In Throes of Increasing Wonder” and ripple in “Draped in Ivy, Guilded by Time” as if in response to Wuyts’ syncopated crashes like raindrops hitting a pond surface. I can’t stress enough how much the drumming thrives in this partnership. Wuyts takes full advantage of the music’s free-flowing character to play one intricate rhythm after another, seemingly using the entirety of his drum kit on a regular basis. The music is further enriched by the warm and whimsical tones of an upright bass—Massant proving to be an expert bassist in more than one sense—which cast a folksy cinematic tint onto tracks such as “On This Twilight Evening” and “These Hands That Build.”

The reluctance of Black Narcissus to linger long in any one place does not mean that they abandon streams of thought prematurely. They provide ample space for each musical passage to gradually bloom and disperse seeds to transition to the next as effortlessly as the passage of time. Time, though, is largely irrelevant here. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten lasts for exactly one hour, but it could have been either half or twice as long and remained equally entrancing. Therefore, it works best if the listener is willing to surrender any dispositions toward customary song structures and witness a forest grow at its pleasure with no concern for the orderliness of man. To this end, the production sounds fantastic. The bass lines, often layered atop one another, are easily audible; each cymbal tap, tom beat, and snare hit sounds crisp and satisfying. My only minuscule grievance is when a spoken word sample in “At the Mercy of Men with No Mercy at All” interrupts immersion by lasting too long, but the other samples throughout the album are used more sparingly.

There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is an aural treat I could never have been prepared for. I selected an instrumental album because I thought it would help me focus during a busy period in my day job, but it gave me way more than I bargained for. While it does make for pleasant background music, it becomes increasingly rewarding the more time and attention are invested. It’s truly an album to become lost in, each hauntingly beautiful song a great companion for many different moods and activities. After five paragraphs of inadequate efforts to describe its majestic sound, I have to admit that Black Narcissus is correct: words are of little value in this realm. So, if you haven’t already, press play and hear the magic for yourself.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Dunk! Records (EU) | A Thousand Arms Music (US)
Websites: blacknarcissusband.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/blacknarcissusband
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

#2025 #45 #AThousandArmsMusic #Alcest #BelgianMetal #BlackNarcissus #DunkRecords #ExplosionsInTheSky #Feb25 #Instrumental #InstrumentalMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #ThereLingersOneWhoSLongForgotten

Black Narcissus – There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten Review

By Killjoy

It’s often impossible to convey feelings with words, so it’s sometimes better not to try. This certainly appears to be the philosophy of Black Narcissus, an instrumental post-rock duo from Belgium comprised of bassist Jesse Massant and drummer Thomas Wuyts. While instrumental groups are hardly uncommon, especially in this genre, Black Narcissus is unique in that bass and drums are the only tools they use to construct their interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. These two vital, stalwart instruments can often be overshadowed by the flashy vocal and multi-guitar antics commonplace in rock and metal. How bright can they shine in a setting where they possess the spotlight by default?

Black Narcissus’ main goal is to cultivate an environment where individual emotional responses can freely blossom. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is teeming with ethereal, evocative melodies sounding like the result of cross-pollination between earlier Explosions in the Sky and Alcest’s Les Voyages de L’Âme era.1 As this description might suggest, there is little resembling heaviness aside from stray blast beats and thick, reverb-drenched bass chords. But those who share our Overlord’s cynical views regarding the role of reverb in atmospheric music needn’t worry; in this case, it’s not a crutch to force a specific mood. Rather, the rich moods naturally wax and wane through masterful musical arrangements, developed enough to easily latch onto yet ambiguous enough to leave room for personal interpretation. Black Narcissus recognizes that, like in nature, there is beauty in simplicity, and all are welcome to partake.

Mother Nature may recycle her resources but Black Narcissus doesn’t recycle ideas. Both players continually explore different melodies and tempos, like walking past one tree after another, each unique but part of a singular forest. Massant’s bass lines gently cascade during “In Throes of Increasing Wonder” and ripple in “Draped in Ivy, Guilded by Time” as if in response to Wuyts’ syncopated crashes like raindrops hitting a pond surface. I can’t stress enough how much the drumming thrives in this partnership. Wuyts takes full advantage of the music’s free-flowing character to play one intricate rhythm after another, seemingly using the entirety of his drum kit on a regular basis. The music is further enriched by the warm and whimsical tones of an upright bass—Massant proving to be an expert bassist in more than one sense—which cast a folksy cinematic tint onto tracks such as “On This Twilight Evening” and “These Hands That Build.”

The reluctance of Black Narcissus to linger long in any one place does not mean that they abandon streams of thought prematurely. They provide ample space for each musical passage to gradually bloom and disperse seeds to transition to the next as effortlessly as the passage of time. Time, though, is largely irrelevant here. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten lasts for exactly one hour, but it could have been either half or twice as long and remained equally entrancing. Therefore, it works best if the listener is willing to surrender any dispositions toward customary song structures and witness a forest grow at its pleasure with no concern for the orderliness of man. To this end, the production sounds fantastic. The bass lines, often layered atop one another, are easily audible; each cymbal tap, tom beat, and snare hit sounds crisp and satisfying. My only minuscule grievance is when a spoken word sample in “At the Mercy of Men with No Mercy at All” interrupts immersion by lasting too long, but the other samples throughout the album are used more sparingly.

There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is an aural treat I could never have been prepared for. I selected an instrumental album because I thought it would help me focus during a busy period in my day job, but it gave me way more than I bargained for. While it does make for pleasant background music, it becomes increasingly rewarding the more time and attention are invested. It’s truly an album to become lost in, each hauntingly beautiful song a great companion for many different moods and activities. After five paragraphs of inadequate efforts to describe its majestic sound, I have to admit that Black Narcissus is correct: words are of little value in this realm. So, if you haven’t already, press play and hear the magic for yourself.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Dunk! Records (EU) | A Thousand Arms Music (US)
Websites: blacknarcissusband.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/blacknarcissusband
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

#2025 #45 #AThousandArmsMusic #Alcest #BelgianMetal #BlackNarcissus #DunkRecords #ExplosionsInTheSky #Feb25 #Instrumental #InstrumentalMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #ThereLingersOneWhoSLongForgotten

Black Narcissus – There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten Review

By Killjoy

It’s often impossible to convey feelings with words, so it’s sometimes better not to try. This certainly appears to be the philosophy of Black Narcissus, an instrumental post-rock duo from Belgium comprised of bassist Jesse Massant and drummer Thomas Wuyts. While instrumental groups are hardly uncommon, especially in this genre, Black Narcissus is unique in that bass and drums are the only tools they use to construct their interpretation of the relationship between man and nature. These two vital, stalwart instruments can often be overshadowed by the flashy vocal and multi-guitar antics commonplace in rock and metal. How bright can they shine in a setting where they possess the spotlight by default?

Black Narcissus’ main goal is to cultivate an environment where individual emotional responses can freely blossom. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is teeming with ethereal, evocative melodies sounding like the result of cross-pollination between earlier Explosions in the Sky and Alcest’s Les Voyages de L’Âme era.1 As this description might suggest, there is little resembling heaviness aside from stray blast beats and thick, reverb-drenched bass chords. But those who share our Overlord’s cynical views regarding the role of reverb in atmospheric music needn’t worry; in this case, it’s not a crutch to force a specific mood. Rather, the rich moods naturally wax and wane through masterful musical arrangements, developed enough to easily latch onto yet ambiguous enough to leave room for personal interpretation. Black Narcissus recognizes that, like in nature, there is beauty in simplicity, and all are welcome to partake.

Mother Nature may recycle her resources but Black Narcissus doesn’t recycle ideas. Both players continually explore different melodies and tempos, like walking past one tree after another, each unique but part of a singular forest. Massant’s bass lines gently cascade during “In Throes of Increasing Wonder” and ripple in “Draped in Ivy, Guilded by Time” as if in response to Wuyts’ syncopated crashes like raindrops hitting a pond surface. I can’t stress enough how much the drumming thrives in this partnership. Wuyts takes full advantage of the music’s free-flowing character to play one intricate rhythm after another, seemingly using the entirety of his drum kit on a regular basis. The music is further enriched by the warm and whimsical tones of an upright bass—Massant proving to be an expert bassist in more than one sense—which cast a folksy cinematic tint onto tracks such as “On This Twilight Evening” and “These Hands That Build.”

The reluctance of Black Narcissus to linger long in any one place does not mean that they abandon streams of thought prematurely. They provide ample space for each musical passage to gradually bloom and disperse seeds to transition to the next as effortlessly as the passage of time. Time, though, is largely irrelevant here. There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten lasts for exactly one hour, but it could have been either half or twice as long and remained equally entrancing. Therefore, it works best if the listener is willing to surrender any dispositions toward customary song structures and witness a forest grow at its pleasure with no concern for the orderliness of man. To this end, the production sounds fantastic. The bass lines, often layered atop one another, are easily audible; each cymbal tap, tom beat, and snare hit sounds crisp and satisfying. My only minuscule grievance is when a spoken word sample in “At the Mercy of Men with No Mercy at All” interrupts immersion by lasting too long, but the other samples throughout the album are used more sparingly.

There Lingers One Who’s Long Forgotten is an aural treat I could never have been prepared for. I selected an instrumental album because I thought it would help me focus during a busy period in my day job, but it gave me way more than I bargained for. While it does make for pleasant background music, it becomes increasingly rewarding the more time and attention are invested. It’s truly an album to become lost in, each hauntingly beautiful song a great companion for many different moods and activities. After five paragraphs of inadequate efforts to describe its majestic sound, I have to admit that Black Narcissus is correct: words are of little value in this realm. So, if you haven’t already, press play and hear the magic for yourself.

Rating: 4.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: PCM
Label: Dunk! Records (EU) | A Thousand Arms Music (US)
Websites: blacknarcissusband.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/blacknarcissusband
Releases Worldwide: February 14th, 2025

#2025 #45 #AThousandArmsMusic #Alcest #BelgianMetal #BlackNarcissus #DunkRecords #ExplosionsInTheSky #Feb25 #Instrumental #InstrumentalMetal #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #ThereLingersOneWhoSLongForgotten

Mountaineer – Dawn and All That Follows Review

By Carcharodon

The legendary Huck n Roll having sadly departed these pages, it falls to me to pick up the Mountaineer reviewing baton, as the Oakland, California sextet stick to their two-yearly release cycle, returning with Dawn and All That Follows. Across his three reviews (3.5-3.0-3.5), Mountaineer clearly struck a chord with olde man Huck, their brand of reflective, shoegaze-y post-metal / -doom conjuring atmospheres and moods that tickled his fancies. The ‘low’ point in the Californians’ AMG journey being the 3.0/5.01 awarded to 2020’s Bloodletting. Having failed, if I may be so bold, to diagnose exactly why this record didn’t quite live up to the strengths of its predecessor, Huck correctly—in my humble opinion—alighted on the issue with Bloodletting in his musings on the successor, 2022’s Giving Up the Ghost: it was too damn long!

This gives me pause as I dive into the band’s fifth length, Dawn and All That Follows, which nudges very close to Bloodletting’s runtime. The band’s lineup has remained remarkably stable, something that comes through in their sound. From the initial plucking and the husky clean vocals from Miguel Meza on opener “Cradlesong,” they are almost instantly identifiable as Mountaineer. However, where previous efforts were packed with exhausted Neurosis-esque melancholy (Passages) or a bleak sense of loss (Bloodletting), Dawn …’s defining emotion is one of whimsical dreaminess, which the striking cover art captures excellently. Both The Smashing Pumpkins and Baroness are cited as reference points for this album, but to place this record in those bands’ discogs, we would be looking to Machina/The Machines of God and Yellow & Green (with a greater emphasis, sadly, on Green), respectively.

Hints of Mountaineer’s sludgy, post-hardcore roots remain (most notably on the title track), but much of the cathartic energy of their earlier work is gone, while Meza’s harsh, post-metal roars have also largely disappeared (again, the title track, and fleeting passages of “Dark Passenger” and “Testimonial” apart). Instead, the dominant mood is one of floating through slowly shifting soundscapes. Though rugged, the terrain has suffered from serious erosion and is decidedly hilly, rather than mountainous, with the glorious peaks (like Bloodletting’s “South to Infinity”) mostly absent. Throughout Dawn …, you will find yourself bathed in walls of reverb-heavy, post-metal chords and rough, blues-laden melodies, while Meza’s clean vocals swirl and soar. The title track, the record’s longest cut, features all these elements but also showcases what previously defined Mountaineer, as the riffs become a landslide and Meza’s harsh vox cause avalanches.

As before, Meza is Mountaineer’s greatest asset, and make no mistake, his cleans are strong, with a keening edge that conveys a real sense of emotion. However, they aren’t quite striking enough to carry a record of this length, without the offset and texture added by his harsher side, which is used sparingly. Similarly, the guitars have reverted to what we saw on Bloodletting, where the addition of two extra guitarists (as against 2018’s Passages, recorded as a quartet), was not obvious in the sound laid down. Having escaped that trap on Giving Up the Ghost, where the trio were more clearly separable, Dawn … represents something of a regression. Not across the board, with the likes of “Parallels” making good use of the 18 strings available in its bending, downbeat rhythms but in general the evenness of the material here is its Achilles heel. Staying true to the loud, slightly crushed mix that was a feature of the past three records, also does Dawn … few favours. That sound worked fine when Mountaineer’s post-rock sensibilities sat alongside their sludgier roots, but here it lessens the impact of what is a more delicate work overall.

My first foray into Mountaineering (as a reviewer, but not as a fan) is a slightly disappointing one, if I’m honest. Closest in tone to the last outing, Giving Up the Ghost, but with nearly 20 minutes more material, Dawn and All That Follows creaks under its own weight. Where Bloodletting was a slightly uneven affair, this album is more cohesively written than that earlier record, which it almost matches in runtime, but it lacks any real standout moments. Where the likes of “South of Infinity” punctuated and lifted Bloodletting, the only track that achieves that here, is the title track. Luckily, that does land around the halfway mark, giving a much-needed injection of energy, but Mountaineer has over-indulged one side of their sound, at the expense of what previously made them so captivating. I’m afraid that, for large parts of this album, I find myself drifting off, rather than carried away.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Labels: A Thousand Arms Music (US) and Dunk!records (EU)
Websites: mountaineerlfr.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/mountaineer
Releases Worldwide: July 26th, 2024

#25 #2024 #AThousandArmsMusic #AmericanMetal #Baroness #Bloodletting #DawnAndAllThatFollows #DunkRecords #Jul24 #Mountaineer #Neurosis #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #TheSmashingPumpkins

Mountaineer – Dawn and All That Follows Review

By Carcharodon

The legendary Huck n Roll having sadly departed these pages, it falls to me to pick up the Mountaineer reviewing baton, as the Oakland, California sextet stick to their two-yearly release cycle, returning with Dawn and All That Follows. Across his three reviews (3.5-3.0-3.5), Mountaineer clearly struck a chord with olde man Huck, their brand of reflective, shoegaze-y post-metal / -doom conjuring atmospheres and moods that tickled his fancies. The ‘low’ point in the Californians’ AMG journey being the 3.0/5.01 awarded to 2020’s Bloodletting. Having failed, if I may be so bold, to diagnose exactly why this record didn’t quite live up to the strengths of its predecessor, Huck correctly—in my humble opinion—alighted on the issue with Bloodletting in his musings on the successor, 2022’s Giving Up the Ghost: it was too damn long!

This gives me pause as I dive into the band’s fifth length, Dawn and All That Follows, which nudges very close to Bloodletting’s runtime. The band’s lineup has remained remarkably stable, something that comes through in their sound. From the initial plucking and the husky clean vocals from Miguel Meza on opener “Cradlesong,” they are almost instantly identifiable as Mountaineer. However, where previous efforts were packed with exhausted Neurosis-esque melancholy (Passages) or a bleak sense of loss (Bloodletting), Dawn …’s defining emotion is one of whimsical dreaminess, which the striking cover art captures excellently. Both The Smashing Pumpkins and Baroness are cited as reference points for this album, but to place this record in those bands’ discogs, we would be looking to Machina/The Machines of God and Yellow & Green (with a greater emphasis, sadly, on Green), respectively.

Hints of Mountaineer’s sludgy, post-hardcore roots remain (most notably on the title track), but much of the cathartic energy of their earlier work is gone, while Meza’s harsh, post-metal roars have also largely disappeared (again, the title track, and fleeting passages of “Dark Passenger” and “Testimonial” apart). Instead, the dominant mood is one of floating through slowly shifting soundscapes. Though rugged, the terrain has suffered from serious erosion and is decidedly hilly, rather than mountainous, with the glorious peaks (like Bloodletting’s “South to Infinity”) mostly absent. Throughout Dawn …, you will find yourself bathed in walls of reverb-heavy, post-metal chords and rough, blues-laden melodies, while Meza’s clean vocals swirl and soar. The title track, the record’s longest cut, features all these elements but also showcases what previously defined Mountaineer, as the riffs become a landslide and Meza’s harsh vox cause avalanches.

As before, Meza is Mountaineer’s greatest asset, and make no mistake, his cleans are strong, with a keening edge that conveys a real sense of emotion. However, they aren’t quite striking enough to carry a record of this length, without the offset and texture added by his harsher side, which is used sparingly. Similarly, the guitars have reverted to what we saw on Bloodletting, where the addition of two extra guitarists (as against 2018’s Passages, recorded as a quartet), was not obvious in the sound laid down. Having escaped that trap on Giving Up the Ghost, where the trio were more clearly separable, Dawn … represents something of a regression. Not across the board, with the likes of “Parallels” making good use of the 18 strings available in its bending, downbeat rhythms but in general the evenness of the material here is its Achilles heel. Staying true to the loud, slightly crushed mix that was a feature of the past three records, also does Dawn … few favours. That sound worked fine when Mountaineer’s post-rock sensibilities sat alongside their sludgier roots, but here it lessens the impact of what is a more delicate work overall.

My first foray into Mountaineering (as a reviewer, but not as a fan) is a slightly disappointing one, if I’m honest. Closest in tone to the last outing, Giving Up the Ghost, but with nearly 20 minutes more material, Dawn and All That Follows creaks under its own weight. Where Bloodletting was a slightly uneven affair, this album is more cohesively written than that earlier record, which it almost matches in runtime, but it lacks any real standout moments. Where the likes of “South of Infinity” punctuated and lifted Bloodletting, the only track that achieves that here, is the title track. Luckily, that does land around the halfway mark, giving a much-needed injection of energy, but Mountaineer has over-indulged one side of their sound, at the expense of what previously made them so captivating. I’m afraid that, for large parts of this album, I find myself drifting off, rather than carried away.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Labels: A Thousand Arms Music (US) and Dunk!records (EU)
Websites: mountaineerlfr.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/mountaineer
Releases Worldwide: July 26th, 2024

#25 #2024 #AThousandArmsMusic #AmericanMetal #Baroness #Bloodletting #DawnAndAllThatFollows #DunkRecords #Jul24 #Mountaineer #Neurosis #PostRock #PostMetal #Review #Reviews #TheSmashingPumpkins