Artist: Ghost Brigade
Title: Until Fear No Longer Defines Us
Type: Album
Label: Season of Mist

There really isn't anything so vital, yet hard to describe in music than atmosphere. Think about the concept for a moment, framed in the focal lens of a pub. What is it that makes your local so vital? Why do you pick it? My guess would be that it has fading wallpaper, surly bar staff, a mediocre selection of beers and bar snacks that laugh at the very concept of “best before” dates. Truth is, “atmosphere” keeps us coming back – I can name a dozen cleaner, better kept and all-together shinier pubs than my local, which on paper means that they should be the kinds of establishment that I want to go back to. I don't.

Atmosphere in music is similarly a tricky bugger to pin down. Ghost Brigade manage to produce it in spades; the aural equivalent of a bloody smoke machine, pumping out tonnes and tonnes of swirly, evocative ear candy that drifts away every time you attempt to grasp it for further critical analysis. A mere three years after the amazing melancholy of “Isolation Songs”, the only band that could reasonably have “post-” attached to “metal” as a genre description and not make me want to reach for the vomit bucket, have returned with a further album of dynamic songs for your delectation. With such illustrious predecessor albums as their stunning début “Guided by Fire” and their amazing follow up “Isolation Songs”, the expectation levels were always going to be high.

The good news is that the formula is by and large unchanged, much in the same way that a good sandwich follows the tried and tested formula of plank of bread, filling, more bread, so the quiet, furious, quiet basic song structures of yore remain here. The light and shade depicted within each song are more than most bands will tinker with in an entire album. When Ghost Brigade reach for the quiet, evocative moments, they call upon the introspective guitars that perhaps recall Katatonia at the height of their emotional powers, and the soothing clean voice of Manne Ikonen. Likewise, with songs like the ferocious “Torn”, the Brigade are able to tap into the purity of metal aggression and a doom/death style approach like My Dying Bride at their most vexed. Add to that mix a crystal clear production job, the tasteful use of strings and other less typical “metal” instrumentation, and the heady brew continues. It goes without saying, of course, that “Until Fear” is not the kind of disc to be listened to while drinking super strength lager, smearing kebab juice over your torso while “partying hard”. This is introspective, intelligent music which, pretentiously enough, favours darkened ambience, candlelight and red wine. If you can wrap your rivet head around that possibility, then this is most definitely one of the most essential releases of 2011.

http://www.myspace.com/ghostbrigade

Chris Davison

MTUK HOME