Labels: 24 Hour Service Station
Review by: Alex Deller
This one piqued my interest on the review pile since the band cite failed major label post-hardcore supergroup Handsome amongst their influences – after all, who the hell does that in this day and age?! “Ghosts In The City’ does indeed have a certain amount of Handsome’s hefty crunch n’ wallop, thick, glossy riffs powering each song along and leaving precious little to the imagination while the rest of the band provide a softer FX-laden churn and swirl on which to cushion them. The dual boy/girl vocals work well for the most part, the chap half’s foghorn yell strangely reminiscent of Kerosene 454’s main hollerer which only adds to the vague sense of late 90s nostalgia permeating the album’s otherwise shiny modernity. Sadly it all rather slips up just past the half way marker, with a slight sense of sameness setting in and a heavy-handed dose of gelatinous vocoder histrionics that really should have been left at the bottom of the bad ideas bin. Still, the first six songs or so are fairly top notch, so hopefully they can iron out the kinks and lay the vocoder to rest for their next outing.