heavily focus on nature and the universe, and ultimately, death. Mount Eerie represents rock in a trilogy of albums based on nature, with It Was Hot, We Stayed In The Water (2000) representing water and The Glow Pt. 2 (2001) representing fire. In the album, Elverum tells of a fictitious climb up Mount Erie, Washington (stylized as Mount Eerie in the album), passing by obstacles along the way. Adam Dlugacz of PopMatters interpreted that Elverum uses the climb of Mount Eerie as metaphor for life after continuously seeing the mountain while growing up in Anacortes, Washington. The album begins with "I. The Sun", a 17-minute long track. Eric Carr of Pitchfork described the drums as a "heart-like pulse"; they gradually build up and become more complex. The drums sweep across the stereo channels, which Carr describes as "evoking either the rising and setting of our star, or the revolution of Earth". According to Elverum, the track's first five minutes represent time in the womb, and that the section until 10:42 spans the first 24 years of life. Far into the song, vocals enter, sounding desolate and vulnerable. Once vocals enter and Phil is born, he is forcibly chased up the mountain, by a personification of Death riding on a black ship. As the song finishes, it is consumed by a wall of distortion, which Carr describes as "a deafening drone and crash of cymbals". In "II. Solar System", Phil continues his climb. The wall of noise from the previous track is cut back into an acoustic strum, described by Carr as "delicate". The lyrics have been interpreted as a self-reflection in nature, or as isolation and worry. On "III. Universe", different voices are prominently used to represent different characters. According to the liner notes written by Elverum, Headwaters, when Phil begins a sentence with "see me" he is speaking to the sun. This lyrical scheme is used in the first lines of "III. Universe" and in "I. The Sun". He explained, "[The 'Phil' character] says 'see me' do this and that because the sun does see it all, impartially." The track ends with a massive choir acting as the voice of the cosmos. The title track, "IV. Mt. Eerie" acts as a climax for the album. In the start, Phil sees Death approaching, or as now fully named, the Big Black Death. Soon, Death arrives, voiced by Kyle Field. Carr