Many “real” bands, and I’m talking, bread and butter, tour their backsides off and generally slum it for awhile before getting signed type bands… dream of it all happening in a year. For a select few, it happens, within a year. For an even fewer elite though, it happens quicker than that. Try two months for Long Beach, California’s I Am Ghost.
A certain particularly large networking site which will remain unnamed played an inaugural part in the formation of the band. Lead singer Steve Juliano posted a few scary pictures and an eerie piano track and then sent out cryptic messages saying he was looking for band members. Auditions happened and it was made clear, the band would be dark and a blend of punk rock and emo. After finding suitable members and recording an eight track EP; the word spread like wildfire and within two months, Epitaph had snapped the band up on the basis of their fourth ever live performance. Juliano sums up the tale better than most… ”You couldn’t get more of a storybook creation of a band than this.”.
Lovers’ Requiem is the bands debut album and sounding like the love child of a messed up metal threesome between Trivium, Protest The Hero and My Chemical Romance it’s twelve tracks of blistering solos and soaring vocals.
Opener ’Crossing The River Styx’ shamelessly opens with an operatic, horror movie introduction. ‘Requiem’ echoes and the imagination is left to run wild for nearly two minutes until ’Our Friend Lazarus Sleeps’ bursts full throttle into our faces with metal-core riffs and vocal harmonies guaranteed to evoke flailing arms in pits across the globe.
’Dark Carnival Of the Immaculate’ eerily echoes the sounds of a haunted funfair for thirty seconds until screams and gory sounds give way to a macabre rollercoaster of a track. Male vocals give way to the addition of a female vocalist seemingly for contrast although it probably would have worked a little better if the female vocals weren’t so drowned out by the male. ’Of Masques and Martyrs’ is a slightly slower track with a fist-in-the-air feel to it, it convulses its way through riffs that would make Ozzy wince and lands smack bang in an electro thunderstorm half way through, finally giving way to crisp clear vocals to finish the song off in not quite as dramatic an instance as it began.
The title track ’Lovers requiem’ sits half way down the track listing and is a clean cut ode to everything ‘emo’. Guilty 100% of creating a track which single handily ticks every box in the ‘Am I Emo’ quiz, it incorporates the typical singer-come-screamer mentalist vocals with fast paced fretwork and frantic smashing of the double bass drum when necessary. Carrying on the spooky theme ’The Ship of Pills and Needed Things’ wouldn’t sound out of place on Matchbook Romance’s ‘Voices’ album.
’This is Home’ the penultimate track mournfully drives you into a goth-rock, AFI-esque style power ballad which unlike pretty much every other track on the album refrains from dispersing into savage screaming. ’Beyond The Hourglass’ the closing track also demonstrates the bands ability to perform without the use of the ‘screamo’ label. It’s powerful, emotive stuff. It’s almost Iced Earth reminiscent, and that, is where I’m going to get murdered by fans of the mighty I.E.
I thoroughly respect Brett Gurewitz, the founder of Epitaph Records, and for that reason I trust his ability to pick up contract-worthy bands. This album, is an extremely strong release for a first album. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect two or three records down the line from an established act and it’s certainly a credit to its creators. It certainly wont be winning any awards for innovation; it sounds like a thoroughbred Protest The Hero but with a bit more ‘emo’ to it. However, that’s not stopping it from being one mighty album. The band were in the 100 bands you have to know in AP for a reason, and this is it. It’s not the most original album of the year, but it’s certainly not going to be leaving my CD player for a few days yet.+
Coming straight out of California, LA’s I Am Ghost are ready to tear up the proverbial rulebook and show those ‘others’ (we mention no names Aiden – whoops) how it’s really done. Currently on a tour of the UK with Brit-rockers Biffy Clyro and the mighty Bronx, their debut single ‘Our Friend Lazarus’ is storming it’s way through the Kerrang playlist and turning heads globally with its unmistakable rip-roaring sound.
Indeed, based on looks alone most people probably don’t know what to expect when first listening to I Am Ghost. Make up and girls pants aside… ‘Our Friend Lazarous’ is clearly an ode to the genius that is the bands songwriter Steve Juiliano, who… with this their debut single has proven to the world that I Am Ghost are a force worth reckoning with. Metal core riffs and in-your-face melodies keep this song flowing at 200 miles an hour; even if the addition of a violin is somewhat unexpected.
Twinned with a cool video (featured below) 2007 might just be the year for I Am Ghost… so stay tuned… they will undoubtedly be hitting up a town near you soon and you never know, you might just be converted too. (You heard it here first!)
Video: Catch the video for ‘Our Friend Lazarus’ here! (Windows Media HI)
Video: Catch the video for ‘Our Friend Lazarus’ here! (Windows Media Quicktime)