On June 29th the second album “Passages” by Bay Area Post-Metal upcomers MOUNTAINEER (feat. ex-members of SECRETS OF THE SKY) will be released and marks the follow up to the band’s critically acclaaimed “Sirens & Slumber”. The music for “Passages” was written by Clayton Bartholomew during three weeks in July, 2017. The album was written from beginning to end in order and nothing was deleted or rewritten. It was an experiment in writing as a stream of consciousness. Vocals and drums were added to the demo version later. This time around, drums were provided by new contributor, Patrick Spain. Clayton wrote and recorded all of the guitars and bass for the record. Mountaineer entered Nu-Tone Studios with producer Ben Hirschfield in Jan, 2018 and the album was recorded over the course of 6 days. Ben Hirschfield also engineered and mixed the record. It was mastered by Mike Kalajian at Rogue Planet Mastering. The album is comprised of two 20 minute long songs, broken into passages. The songs are tied together by several overarching themes, but is mainly focused around the struggle to grasp the concept of mortality. The band used some interesting sound layers on Passages. Xylophones, piano, tamborine, bells and beer bottles as percussion are a few examples.
