:: Track Listing

1. Motherly Bluster
2. Hemicyclic Anthelion
3. Water Door Yellow Gate
4. Gareki No Toshi
5. Caledonia
6. Grisaile

:: Record Review

Ghost

In Stormy Nights
(Drag City; 2007)

Rating: 78%


I think Amir Nezar's equation of listening to Hypnotic Underworld (2004) with climbing a mountain is fairly apt. It's not just that Ghost are demanding in terms of the sonic experience they offer, though it's true their more abstract material pushes the boundaries of structure and tonality as much as just about any current band. It's also that they stretch the limits of any notion of artistic unity by embracing noise, folk, and psychedelic music simultaneously, without conforming to any single genre. But Ghost has been quietly doing exactly that for roughly the past two decades; long before Joanna Newsom's Renaissance Fair, before numerous contemporary bands tried on various versions of the psych-folk hybrid, and before Animal Collective made the Incredible String Band popular again. In other words, it's a good time for Ghost to have their own renaissance.

In Stormy Nights is, for all of its disorienting stylistic shifts, an impeccably sequenced album, forming a labyrinth of tension and release that makes it greater than the sum of its parts. The album is book-ended by two lovely, delicate folk songs which sound even further removed from the modern era than recent work by Newsom or Espers. "Motherly Bluster," despite its rather straightforward acoustic guitar picking and light psychedelic flourishes, feels like the calm before the storm. Check that mystical flute over top, or the few moments of near-silence where vocalist and spiritual leader Masaki Batoh's voice whispers "sleeping/dreaming" repeatedly. Underneath the song's dream-like exterior calm Batoh is conjuring up dark images, summoning a whirlwind to follow.

Enter the 28-minute long "Hemicyclic Anthelion," an ambitious patchwork of live improvisations. It begins with a blast of feedback and a two-note distorted guitar loop that sounds like the noise a 10-ton mechanical beast might make backing up. Or like the main synth-line from the first track off of Supersilent's 6. When the noise recedes, some light cymbal crashes, scratching strings, and various high-pitched wails take over; and around the 7-and-a-half minute mark a burbling aquatic noise kicks in, and some heavily processed percussion that sounds like nothing I've ever heard before. This unfamiliarity in many of the sounds is what keeps the track from descending into tedium: it seems remarkably laboured over, especially for something that's improvised on the spot. Which isn't to say that "Anthelion" is always entirely absorbing; the whole track could probably stand to be about 10 minutes shorter. The highlight nevertheless comes at the 21-minute mark after the same distortion loop from the beginning of the track has been re-established; a chainsaw attack and other harsh noises suddenly give way to ringing xylophones and lumbering contrabass with the main loop continuing underneath for a few bars. The distortion eventually drops out altogether and a piano begins playing free jazz melodies over the bass and keys. This sudden shift into more ethereal terrain is probably the best evidence of Batoh's careful editing of disparate sessions and makes the track more interesting than an uninterrupted jam. It also shows how Ghost eschew abrasiveness for its own sake; it seems that for every moment of violence and intensity on In Stormy Nights there's an equal amount of unnerving silence and ominous beauty. If anything, this approach makes the album more visceral; the listener ends up swept into its ever-shifting current, realizing that all moments of peace are merely transitory, and everything that could be calm in other circumstances is imbued with tension.

The album then proceeds with three tracks of thundering percussion for which Batoh plays doomsday preacher and tortured soul in erotic agony. I'm not really into metal, and at times these songs come across as attempts to superficially tap into a devil's-horns vibe, but the only really dissatisfying track is "Water Door Yellow Gate" which sounds exactly like the music in Final Fantasy when you end up casually stumbling into the fortress of a group of resistance fighters who at first distrust you but then the real evil attacks and you have to work together to break the siege in some lame mini-game. The track consists solely of the same apocalyptic marching beat and three chords through its entirety, and grows tiring before its 5-and-a-half minutes are up.

Luckily, it's followed by the best track on the album, "Gareki No Toshi," which manages to have all the unbridled and lustful energy of the Stooges combined with the spaced-out paranoia of Wish You Were Here-era Pink Floyd. Over a furious drumbeat, Batoh howls unintelligibly from layers of static and in-the-red mixing, the whole thing sounding like a fuzzy radio broadcast from a war zone. Since Boris seem to be going the way of blessed-out shoegazers, this might be the greatest piece of Japanese noise-rock released this year. It also proves that this band can be genuinely dark and intense while retaining their sense of humour.

After an equally aggressive cover of Cromagnon's "Caledonia," In Stormy Nights takes its most dramatic shift into the final track. If "Motherly Bluster" was the anticipation of the battle to come, "Grisaille" is the sound of a wearied warrior returning to the nest. The same style of guitar picking from the first track is here, with languid hand percussion giving it a campfire feel. Satoh's voice, despite his often-slurred pronunciation of English, sounds positively soulful here, a cross between Peter Murphy and Roger Waters.

In Stormy Nights occupies a rather odd space reserved for bands whose diversity is on an equal plane with their singularity. Which is to say that Ghost, while proficient in a variety of different styles, manage to draw them out in a way that is distinctly their own. This approach seems to see music in terms of broad, epic gestures; maybe that's why parts of this material tend to falter. But that's also why it succeeds: through its overarching range, it ably balances silence with noise, restraint with reckless abandon. Joel Elliott :: 10 February 2007 |