Ghosts - The World Is Outside (2007)

 



I bought this album on reading a good review on Amazon. It was found in a charity shop and signed on the sleeve by all four members. The things you can find in these shops is quite exciting. Anyway, putting on the music you hear a fairly normal indie rock band sound from the Nouhgties. Some say they sound like The Feeling (a band I'm mostly unfamiliar with) and Keane. I can see the Keane similarities but I would add to that mix Travis, as the vocals are quite soft and delicate. This is what you could class as soft indie but with enough energy from the band and experimentation to make it interesting. In fact, there is some similarities with a band that went to the same secondary school as me in London, a great little band called Symposium, who even broke into the American charts. You might compare Ghost's sound a little to Coldplay, and they often do best on the quieter songs which are quite touching.

This album starts with the very excellent opener, Stay the Night, and becomes a bit bland after that but picks up around track 6, a soft and beautful song called Something Hilarious. Ghosts use keyboards very well mixing the modern with a bit of 80's nostalgia but staying firmly rooted in 2007. 

After track 6, we get 'Stop' a disco number and then more nice songs like 'Over-Analysis' and 'Further and Further Away'. 

Overall the album is an interesting foray into indie music with a bit of heart and intelligence. Amusingly the last track, 'Temporary', predicted exactly what the state of the Ghost's life span would be, and that is, a short but enjoyable one. In fact, this track sounds reminiscent of another famous indie song, but I can't quite place it. They might not have been chart or contenders to their contemporaries but music is more about expressing your own sound and not aiming for winning awards. 

Chosen track: Something Hilarious (live version):




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keane - Hopes and Fears (2004)

Image
  I remember when I was recording some demos with my band around 2004/5 and the studio engineer was banging on about Keane's album being marvelously produced. Apart from that we all heard their singles on the radio and to be honest I didn't take a liking to it then but listening to the album today for the first time I must say that despite being frontloaded with the hits at the beginning gets a good flow going and I can see why a lot of people have praised this album. Tom Chaplin's vocals are very good if not amazing and the problem for me with the three-piece is that they are too low key, a bit too perfect, which makes the music quite boring.It's definitely a light kind of pop and the lyrics are not terribly deep but they don't need to be with this type of music. Yes there are some similarities with Coldplay but not having a guitar makes the songs less hook driven and quite a lot more introverted. There are some similiarities with 90's chill out music which I h...
Read more

Keane - Under The Iron Sea (2006)

Image
  Add caption This, Keane's 2nd album album, is a less hit-ridden affair but the songs are almost equally strong. I am currently half-way through it with 'Put It Behind You' which is starting to slightly grate on me. I enjoyed the first 5 songs but then 'Hamburg Song' came on and it isn't very enjoyable. There's nothing to really grab you and some say Keane make more intelligent music than Coldplay but that is debatable. Sure, there is more spacey keyboard playing but do the means justify the end if all we get is a pretty boring ride of sound of 12 songs. I'm afraid they really are a 2nd rate Coldplay, as the enjoyment....wait, Crystal Ball has just come on and I really like the chorus, I even seem to remember it being on the radio all that time ago. My mum's verdict has said that 'Coldfeet' have a more serious sound, whereas Keane are more light which is strange as I don't think of happiness when I remember the dirges almost they produce...
Read more

Prince - Sign O' The Times (1987)

Image
Well, in two days the 13 LP Sign O' The Times Remastered Super Deluxe Edition is being released for the first time, so I thought I'd do a review of what is considered Prince's magnum opus. This is an album I might have played once or twice all the way through and I'm sure there is more to it than I picked up the first time. For example, I really hated U Got The Look on the second cd but now think it's a rock masterpiece. Each song is a world unto itself as are most of Prince's songs are and they quintessentially have that 80's sound. Some are rockers, some are funk jams, some are laid-back soul affairs but each shows the experimental nature that Prince embodied. It has been said that Purple Rain was the record which defined the 80's but here Prince is able to express himself with less pressure over two cds. This is, famously, the record Prince had to literally fight his record company to release, and it was much longer even than its released form would s...
Read more