With a cracking tour announced for February 2015, backed by metal mag titans Metal Hammer yet only one measly date in London? (13/2/15) it’s clear the Finnish metal mega minds Ghost Brigade are still wanting world domination and with 3 albums under their belt including the highly rated first release Guided by Fire (2007) it’s quite a possibility they will. Now on their fourth release with ’One with the Storm’ let’s just see if their cool as a cucumber act Is still in top form.
Straight away they take no prisoners with their first track ‘Wretched Blues’ with some awesomely dark growling vocals, which seems to sound better with each release. Beautifully composed and the way the music suddenly stops with an echo, quite superb and left me wanting more. ‘Departures’ doesn’t fail to impress with the classical guitar and clean vocals and definitely something new to the mix here, sounding almost as if the likes of Gary Numan has had a part in it too.
Something I really like about Ghost Brigade is how they manage to mix all sorts in together like death and clean vocals, melodic and doom notes and classical guitar. Yes, it’s been done before but not to this kind of perfection. For example ‘Aurora’ contains all recipes above and more. Quite a piece.
My favourite track has to be ‘Disembodied Voices’. The vocals on this one completely blew me away as well as having a grunge flair to it. So much originality! ‘Electra Complex’ came in at a close second though, another spectacularly written song, if a little depressing in parts but I guess that’s what they’re about.
‘Stones and Pillars’ gets down and dirty with some grufty man-riffs worthy of a good headbang, do you headbang to this kind of music? The vocals again are outstanding! I feel like sending the poor bloke some strepsils though, Jesus!
‘Anchored’ immediately got me swaying. The lyrics are full of emotion and grabs you by the balls! This band should definitely be touring with bigger bands and it’s surprising how many people have not heard of them.
A blinder of an intro to ‘The Knife’ with its no nonsense crunchy riffs and bass. The keyboard work on this is quite something, sounds like something off a 70s horror film. Impressively, the track changes into something a bit heavier towards the middle section, then back into the norm as if nothing had happened. Again with those vocals, repeating myself here, but wow!
Ending with ‘ElÑmÑ on tulta’ which Google tells me means “ElÑmÑ has the fire” so there you go! I’ll be honest; there’s nothing spectacular about this track and was a little deflated after hearing such awesomeness throughout the album. This one just droned on, there’s was no substance to it. And it seemed to go on forever.
(7/10 Charlie Rance)
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