When guitarist Clayton Bartholomew formed Mountaineer in 2015, his old band, black/doom collective Secrets of the Sky, had just endured an ugly, public dissolution that could have derailed career of a lesser musician. Fortunately, no one would ever describe Bartholomew as such. In just five years, he’s completed three full-lengths of crushing post-metal slowcore and shoegaze that takes equal parts Failure and Cult of Luna, each record’s material echoing the slow-build crescendo of Mountaineer’s career arc. On the eve of their latest — Bloodletting, due May 22 via the perpetually underrated Lifeforce — Decibel is stoked to present one of their most concise numbers in the form of new single “Ghost Story.”
“‘Ghost Story’ is the last track on the album, and the most personal to me,” Bartholomew tells Decibel. “I think it serves as a crescendo: the conceptual culmination of everything that came before it. The last line in the song means a great deal to me… “If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me. If you ever find a change, you know where to look.” It is a resolution; a way of leaving a door slightly ajar and an optimistic viewpoint given the sentiment that drives the rest of the album leading up to this point.”
Pre-order Bloodletting here.
