Finally home, Love Ghost drop their anticipated EP. A collaboration with the New York-based Emo rapper Big Boss Mulaa, and with production from Mike Summers, who has work with Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar in his résumé, it’s easy to see why Love Ghost have been receiving constant praise from the industry’s highest profile publications.
Tales of A Sad Boy is Love Ghost’s 3rd release with Cleopatra Records. This group, based in Los Angeles, is a powerhouse of modern alt-rock, drawing pages from Linkin Park, and paying a respectful, tasteful homage to the late Chester Bennington through the over-the-top vocal deliveries of frontman Finnegan Bell, and hyped-up, electrifying instrumentals from the rest of the band. Tales of A Sad Boy is a 4-part EP with accompanying videos, and the quality and standard to which these works have been executed are simply sublime. Totally epic production, invigorating atmospheres, characterful words, and memorable, powerful melodies are all mainstays throughout the 4 cuts.
Heartless is rich with a scratchy and tight rhythm guitar parts, lightly overdriven, and wonderfully mixed in, with a few compositional and production tricks that elevate the element of “interesting”, such as the double tracking, and the automatic filtering effect, and a quirky chord that slips us into the chorus. Lethargic is mostly just that. Slumbering, dark, and foreboding. The memorable guitars and unique atmospheric effects create a mood that’s engulfing and hypnotizing. The plenty melancholic progression gently and elegantly carries us into a final, heaving crescendo with a dense, layered vocal part, and a thick bass line. Samurai is the most hyped up and electrical affair of the whole lot, with a prominent hip hop inflection, and a beat drop in the chorus so heavy and impactful one can see Chester smiling from way up there. Train Tracks has another gracefully executed bleak composition that’s transformed into a rich and powerful piece of alt-rock with a chorus that packs a melodic punch, and a forlorn vibe that’s accentuated with the slow tempo and heavy-handed drums.
The wonderful guitars and guitar sounds throughout this release prove that the guitar is an extremely versatile instrument, when in the right hands, Finnegan and Daniel Alcala, the two guitarists in Love Ghost are definitely among those right hands, and as a guitarist myself, I found this aspect of the album very rewarding and enjoyable. Other than that, this short collection is powerful, beautifully written and produced, the performances are spot on, the vibes are lush, and moreover, the sound greatly varies from one song to the other, with just enough sonic cohesion to string those 4 songs together in one, healthy, alternatively rocking meal. Love Ghost have been receiving a lot of praise recently, and this is just some more of that.
