Ghost Brigade

By Júlio Valada on Aug 12, 2011 in Cd Review | 0 comments

Album: Until Fear No Longer Defines Us
Label: Season Of Mist
Tracks: 10
Release Date: August 19th
Lenght: 58′ 10″

Riff Score: 9.0/10

Ghost Brigade are releasing their third album, one that features amazing artwork and a really suggestive name, Until Fear No Longer Defines Us, which is really consistent with the melancholic tone they have all around its ten songs. It’s also a quantum leap in terms of quality from their earlier records.

My first contact with the band was during last year’s Vagos Open Air, as they played right before Amorphis. Two things remained in my head after that show, the fact that this was an interesting band and that a closer following of their work was in order, and Manne Ikonen’s voice which sounded really peculiar and in its own respect unique in today’s metal scene. So obviously I had to check out their studio efforts and unfortunately I wasn’t the least surprised by them as I was expecting a lot more. They seemed to me like a watered down Katatonia with some sludge and progressive influences. I can’t say that their two previous albums endeared me in any way as I found them a bit bland and even boring at times, but I still had their show in my memory so I hadn’t wrote them off entirely.

A couple of weeks ago I received the promo for their third and latest album and I can say that I was really hooked by it on first listen. I put it playing just to get a simple glimpse at how it would sound, but I found myself too glued to the songs present here to take it off, or even skip a song! So I ended up listening to it in its entirety, a process frequently repeated over the next couple of weeks and that had its apex on this review. As I wrote in the introduction, the band had a quantum leap in terms of quality from their earlier album onto this. They didn’t just wrote better songs or riffs, they’ve clearly grown as musicians and ended up having a much better approach on this album than on previous ones. Here they completely demolish everything they’ve done before as this is an amazing album with great songwriting. But it isn’t only a matter of having better constructed melodic passages or just better riffs (and there are a lot of great ones), they have really great songs that work as individual pieces but at the same time the album flows very naturally, so much that you find yourself as me, not wanting to skip a beat, a riff or an acoustic passage.

Speaking of acoustic passages, the album features a few, and this is better exemplified by the four minute opening track that is just voice over an acoustic riff. It’s a great song, a sort of upgraded intro that serves as the gateway for the first moment of greatness in the album with “Clawmaster”. With a main riff coming out of Cult Of Luna’s repertoire, it smashes you with its sludgy guitars pounding your weary soul but still retains an endearing sense of melody that’s reminiscent of mid to later period Katatonia or even later Amorphis. These guys are in fact from Finland and it is noticeable how their counterparts have influenced them. This description is befitting of another track, “Breakwater”, were again the sludgier influences of Cult Of Luna are shown. The album has a very atmospheric writing and flow, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ghost Brigade would be listening to Neurosis these days. The amount of post-rock influences present here has to be referred, and moments such as the repeating pattern at the beginning of “Cult Of Decay” or the crushing chorus of the final track “Soulcarvers” are good examples. Yes you can say that this is borderline on post-metal, and I really hate that term although by using it it’s easier to better explain how diverse this album sounds. If you want to categorize Until Fear No Longer Defines Us you’ll be in for a bit of trouble as it ranges from sludgy moments into post-rockish choruses, has a lot of progressive influences, melodic passages, growls and clean vocals…you name it! For me it stands in a fine line between Katatonia, Amorphis, Cult Of Luna, Opeth, and even a bit of Neurosis although this is more in terms of atmosphere. Seems great? It is!

I’ve already mentioned some tracks but as I pointed out above every song is a strong one, every moment is worthy of appreciation and every beat, riff or melodic break are enjoyable. The best moments in the album are scattered everywhere, but songs like “Divine Act Of Lunacy” with its bombastic drumming and catchy riffing, “Grain” with its soul crushing chorus and melodic build-ups, “Torn” which has a violin passage near the end, and “Soulcarvers” with its amazing build-up into that marvelous chorus, are all something else. Speaking of the later, it bears some resemblances to one of the best songs ever written, “Beyond The Realms Of Death” featured on the Stained Class album by metal gods Judas Priest. It borrows a sense of riffing from that song and turns it into build-ups that end up in a crushing post-rockish chorus, just to go back at a doomy pace a few moments later, repeating it again and again. If the album was great so far then this song leaves you totally floored.

I’m not kidding and also not over-exaggerating when I say that this album is miles away from anything the band has done so far. I’ll go further and say that this is one of the best albums I’ve heard this entire year, and this effort alone has renewed my faith in the band for greater flights. With this kind of songwriting and such a marvelous voice behind it, capable of doing bellowing roars and haunting clean passages, they have a bright future up ahead. The production once again is as good as the Season Of Mist’s roster has accustomed us. It’s even more noteworthy to mention its brilliance when so many layers of sound are imposed onto us like on this record, and we can hear all of them as bright as the northern lights. This one is in heavy rotation on my sound system and I can say it’s way up there in my list of the best albums of 2011. Few have equaled it in terms of quality so far and even fewer have surpassed it, so I can only say that if you like the bands I mentioned then you’ll probably like this. If you crave for a melancholic and atmospheric journey to the inner reaches of your soul, a cathartic experience of sound and ecstasy, or a crushing experience weaved through a wide range of dynamics, as if it was a roller coaster of emotions and musical scales, then this is for you. It’s a joyride of emotions and an amazing listening experience, so enjoy.

By: Júlio Valada