Customer Reviews

In Stormy Nights

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Savoring, from their past releases, their more heavily amplified psychedelic tracks ("Rabi Rabi" from "Lama Rabi Rabi") as well as the ones driven by the mixture of explosive, pastoral, riffing produced when percussive, acoustic, and woodwind instruments weave melody lines together at a naturally elevated volume ("Holy High" from "Hypnotic Underworld"), I will have to admit that "In Stormy Nights", released by Ghost in 2007, can sometimes be too much of a good thing, as four of the six tracks are probably close to the most aggressive that the band has ever recorded, extending and refining that element to almost its furthest natural conclusion on any of Ghost's previous releases.

Three songs immediately signal the pursuit of this direction; tracks 3, 4, and 5 - "Water Door Yellow Gate", "Gareki No Toshi", and and a cover of '60's prog rock group Cro-Magnons' "Caledonia". Both "Water Door Yellow Gate" and "Gareki No Toshi" are driven by a mixture of explosive riffing from percussive instruments and heavily modulated electric guitar, maintaining a martial tempo throughout. "Gareki No Toshi" features vocals from lead singer Masaki Batoh that sound as if they were being yowled through the transmission matrix of an orbital platform, while "Caledonia", with its mixture of pipes, flutes, recorders, tympani, guitar processed through heavy effects, and Batoh's throat-scalding vocals sounds like a full-scale samurai assault on an ancient highlands fortress.

"Hemicyclic Anthelion", the second track from this release (and one that will almost certainly have some listeners whaling on their own foreheads in consternation) differs from the cuts metioned above in that it does not evolve either organically or through an entirely fluid progression; it's actually been spliced together from a number of live recordings. Sounding in a few places as if radio telescopes were accessing live feed from pulsars in some of the furthest corners of the universe in two-toned discordance, in others it's as if the band were composing a soundtrack for entering a tranquil meadow on the first day after the creation of the world. By turns meditative and truly assaultive, it's the most ambitious track the band has ever assembled, and has left critical opinion on it fiercely divided, with some professional reviewers comparing it to the incoherency of "Metal Machine Music" while others hail it as a masterpiece of improvisation on two separate levels (both from the live recordings and tactics of studio manipulation.)

Never has the band failed to deliver on any release with its gentler, more pastoral compositions, and there's no exception here. "Motherly Bluster" and "Grisaille" bookend the more demanding, assertive material, and with their emphasis on traditional Japanese instruments mining the more pastoral elements in a manner similiar to the rustic yet elegantly-structured tracks that appear on "Snuffbox Immanence" they provide breathing room on either side, though both make room for a liquidy, extended electric guitar line weaving through the folkish atmosphere of each cut.

"In Stormy Nights" is a challenging release, but repeated listening rewards the effort put into it. But don't let this serve as a starting point for Ghost; get "Lama Rabi Rabi" if you need a seamless introduction to the full spectrum of this band's unique blend of Japanese folk and and heavily psychedelic riffing.