Man, what an album! What a great surprise! Easy, easy one of the best albums of the year.
Black Metal? Post Black Metal? Industrial Metal? Well, whatever it is this album is one of the best I have heard this year, and believe me, the competition has been really hard.
It is not easy to explain the long and widing road to the music from “Rose Thorn Necklace.” I’d say it is a blizzard of emotions with an avalanche of diverse influences and musical perfomance. Ghost Bath are not an easy band to be explained either.
The flaming combination the band do here in the album is the first thing that comes out from the audio player. If vocals are pure Black Metal, the same cannot be said of the instrumentals which sometimes address to Pink Floyd, other times address to Judas Priest or Iron Maiden as in “Dandelion Tea‘s” guitar riffing. And how about the effects? They are the ones that give the album their unforgetable taste even though taking it to a non-metal road. What about the unusual guitar techniques that give the songs more melody and an uncanny sonancy? They come from Prog Rock or Prog Metal or even the unexpected pop tunes.
Starting with album tittle “Rose Thorn Necklace.” Its dark poetry combines with the unusual melody taken from Prog Metal or everything that sounds like it, if you know what I am saying. That’s the most attractive thing about the song, its combination of a Black metal entity with the musical wrapping from outer beings. It’s almost a cacophony, but organized in layers of music with some 1980’s guitar strummings. Well, not only. The song is complex, but not technically complex; its songwriting complexity is due to the many layers of addictional effects and outer beings as the octavating guitars.
I picture “Rose Thorn Necklace” as a Black Metal soiree where people come and give their interventions. The weirder, the better. The darkest wins it all. It is the impression “Well, I Tried Drowning,” despite its depressing tittle passes the fan. By the way, an album with a song called “Throat Cance” should give the fan the chills, but it is the other way around. The thing is this album does not sound depressive. Believe me or not, it sounds full of life. The touching melody of the intro of “Thinly Sliced Heart Muscle” calls the fan attention to its delicate structrures. I guess Ghost Bath‘s intent was to make the fan feel like there are large needles perfurating the fan’s skin, but it is not what happens. Same happens with the classical and intense pianos of “Needles.” Both songs feel so melodic, intense and so pretty. Or of a bestial beauty. I guess now we are talking…
Ghost Bath “Rose Thorn Necklace” was released on May 09th via Nuclear Blast Records.
Track Listing:
1. Grotesque Display
2. Rose Thorn Necklace
3. Well, I Tried Drowning
4. Thinly Sliced Heart Muscle
5. Dandelion Tea
6. Vodka Butterfly
7. Stamen and Pistil
8. Needles
9. Throat Cance
Watch “Rose Thorn Necklace” official music video here:
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!