22 Dec 2024
Mountaineater - Mountaineater Album Review
10 Oct 2013 // A review by Alistar3000
Mountaineater are one of the few bands around that manage to somehow sound like their name. Slowly building up layers of sound, with rumbling bass and relentless rhythms, you can almost imagine a mountain crumbling away at the sheer intensity of this sonic assault.
Their debut self-titled album has taken a long time to see the light of day, but after hearing it I have to say it’s been worth the wait. Despite several of the tracks being available online and on various 7” discs over the past few years, there’s something different about hearing them in the context of the album; they seem to have a new lease of life, offering a new perspective, and serving to elevate each of the tracks beyond what they were as singles online.
Lord of Sumo, one of the newer tracks, and the first single from the album, is a real standout – despite a couple of the older songs being firm favourites of mine. The song is poppier than the older material, although pop being a relative term here, and lends itself well to being a single; at the same time, it’s unmistakably the sound of Mountaineater, a sound grounded in the heyday of the Dunedin sound, but never dwelling within that era.
This is a slow smouldering album, full of huge songs, and it’s an album that deserves full attention, lest you miss the subtleties amongst the onslaught of sound. In a year of massive local albums, this is right up near the top of my list, and one I’ll be coming back to repeatedly.
Mountaineater
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About Mountaineater
When a new Dunedin three piece made their live debut near the end of 2008, one thing was obvious - for Tristan Dingemans, front man of the formidable band HDU, lightening had struck twice. This was no former glory with backing band situation; this was a band, which was instantly capable of creating its own moments of puretranscendency. In short, Dingemans has an excellent shit filter, and proved he wasn't gonna step out until he had something great. And ladies and gentleman, with Chris Livingston (drums) and Anaru Ngata (bass and guitar), that is Mountaineater.
Few bands manage to take the intangibility of experiencing a natural landscape and transform it into sound, but those that do are absolutely momentous. Yes, with this brooding and heavy mix of sonic landscapes and visceral, bludgeoning rock, you can't ignore the pedigree. Yet Mountaineater is a further step down the pathof tension filled catharsis, as immediately inviting as they are unrelenting.
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