CD Review of The Black Ghosts by The Black Ghosts
Recommended if you like
Yaz, The Klaxons,
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Label
Bluhammock
The Black Ghosts:
The Black Ghosts

Reviewed by James B. Eldred

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C
onsidering they only released two albums and had absolutely no degree of success in America, there sure seems to be a lot of interest in what the members of Simian have been up to since they broke up in 2005. The two Jameses of the British art-rock group, Shaw and Ford, started the dance-happy Simian Mobile Disco and they’ve quickly become one of the most respected dance acts around, thanks in part to their remix work with the very of-the-moment French duo Justice. Their debut album, Attack Sustain Release, was met with near-universal critical acclaim, but that was mostly because rock critics don’t know jack about electronic music. Sure, it was a good album, but there was nothing on that sucker that hadn’t already been done 20 times over by better, lesser-known electronic acts.

Somewhat lost in all the acclaim (deserved or not) of SMD, most people forgot that Simian lead singer Simon Lord had a new project as well. That project is the Black Ghosts, an electronic-rock duo featuring Lord and DJ Touché (a.k.a. Theo Keating, a.k.a. what an awful DJ name). Their self-titled debut probably won’t garner the critical orgasms that SMD’s debut did, which is a shame because it is much better, more original, and catchier than Attack Sustain Release could ever hope to be.

Lord’s former bandmates at SMD are house DJs, but calling your music “house” hasn’t been a wise career move since 1993, so the more popular designations are electro or synth-pop. The Black Ghosts, on the other hand, actually are an electro/synth-pop band in the most traditional sense. Their retro sound is comprised almost entirely of keyboards and drum machines, and most of their songs sound like they could have been released in 1986.

But that’s not a bad thing; in fact, it’s kind of refreshing. With so many electronic acts claiming to be influenced by the classic sounds of Depeche Mode and Yaz, the Black Ghosts seem to be only ones sticking to their guns. This is an electro record. If you stripped away Lord’s high-pitched vocals and cranked up the bass just a bit, you’d find this album on a breakdancer’s robot-friendly playlist. The melodies on “I Don’t Know” and “Anyway You Choose to Give It” sound like something ripped from a Kraftwerk song.

Black Ghosts

It sounds great, but just like house music, early-‘80s electropop isn’t exactly “cool,” so they try to bring things up to the modern era on a few tracks, and the results are mixed at best. It works great the first time around, with the excellent “Repetition Kills You,” a beat-heavy sure-to-be-hit that features a guest appearance by Blur’s Damon Albarn. But every other time Lord and Touché try to mix things up, they don’t fare nearly as well, and sometimes it’s just downright embarrassing. The acoustic guitar of “Full Moon” is jarring and completely out of place, while the ballad-like “Don’t Cry,” with its synthetic orchestra, is a painfully bland ballad that sounds like something that Dirty Vegas would turn down as being too boring. It’s almost a Savage Garden outtake.

These less-than-stellar attempts at modernization are buried in the second half of the album, so maybe Lord and Touché knew they weren’t firing on all cylinders with those two. However, they sure do know how to close strong. “Face” finishes things off by cranking up the synths to 11 with that classic “hardcore” sound, a la 808 State’s “Cubik” while Lord yells that it’s time to “face the music.”

Despite the album’s dip into filler territory near the end, Lord has proven that the Black Ghosts can compete with his fellow Simian refugees.

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