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lover’s requiem
album review
by erin thursby
scopes1925@msn.com

Artist:
I Am Ghost

Title:
Lover’s Requiem

Release Date:
10.10.06

Label:
Epitaph
      There comes a moment in everyone’s life when they need music that’s more than just a little bit over-the-top. Hence Xtreme metal bands and, the oh-so-goth dark alt music of I Am Ghost. Track one promised me something really different. Called ‘Crossing the River Styx’ and it features layered, operatic chanting (not unlike a requiem) and some interesting electronic work. It’s a track you’ll either love or hate. But the next track, ‘Our Friend Lazarus Sleeps,’ utterly destroyed the mindset the first track created. Suddenly they sounded a lot like every somewhat metal-core/punk band I’ve listened to in the last two years. They began to redeem themselves later in the track, but I was still disappointed in the sudden jolt from one style to another. It depressed me.
      As I listened to their album, I kept wondering about their next album. I heard potential in the music, but I was never quite reconciled to their current sound. I want to hear more of them, to see where they go and how they evolve.
      ‘Dark Carnival of the Immaculate’ begins well, with some nifty background noise, but it ended up sounding somewhat like the last two tracks. Still, their gimmicky yet hard-edged sound makes it easy to hear why they’ve gathered a large number of fans, even before they were signed to a label.
      I don’t mind screamo bands provided the screaming is well placed and well used. In many of the tracks I Am Ghost features misplaced screaming that they don’t use well. While they don’t make the mistake of screaming throughout the album, the best tracks feature either muted screaming mixed into the background, or it’s cut considerably.
      Lover’s Requiem, their first professionally recorded album, can be considered a Goth-rock opera, and the band mapped out a plot before they wrote the songs to go with it. ‘Pretty People Never Lie, Vampires Never Die’ has to be my favorite track, because it’s at this point in the album when the mainstream hardcore sound is finally married to the more operatic and quirky aspects of their music. Their sound is much stronger when they blend the two in equal measure. The violins thrown into a couple of tracks do make them stand out from the rest, especially in ‘The Ship of Pills and Needed Things.’ The vocal duels between male and female also makes them worth listening to, if only for the delicious drama of it all.

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