“SPIRIT ADRIFT’s gimmick is simple: there is no gimmick,” says the band’s mastermind, Nate Garrett. “Just great songs, great heavy riffs, catchy parts that make you want to bang your head and uplifting parts that make you want to fly into the sky.”

It should come as no surprise that this no-frills approach to music has been met with enthusiasm and appreciation in the metal community, helping the band to amass a respectable following. Because the one thing that metal fans of all shades share is a liking for a traditional sound, a love for the basics.

Since its inception as a solo project in 2015, the band has meandered, via numerous releases, from doom to classic heavy metal, changing personnel and sound along the way. With Ghost at the Gallows, their new full-length, the project seems to have arrived at the best, most consistent version of itself so far. For starters, let’s put it like this: If you like Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Slayer and Metallica, if you are here for the RIFFS, the stirring drumming, clean, expressive vocals and lyrics studded with slogans – Ghost at the Gallows will give you all of that.

The aim, we have learned, was to write an album that people will want to listen to not just today, but also in 10 years. Going back to the roots therefore made absolutely sense. In accordance with the music, the album’s lyrics also focus on a common denominator: Life crises that anyone can relate to and will have to deal with sooner or later – experiences like sickness and disease, and the passing of family members and friends. The stress, here, however, was on finding the “good in the bad, strength in weakness, and hope in darkness”. Nate Garrett, namely, has a music-as-therapy-approach, something that combines excellently with the character and sound of classic heavy metal. And you can definitely hear that the songs on Ghost at the Gallows are played with gusto and passion, with honesty and urgency.

If this is your first encounter with the band, the best starting point might not be the album opener Give Her to the River. At seven and a half minutes, it is one of the albums longest tracks and the song structure might be asking a bit too much from a new listener. Single and track number two Barn Burner, however, is perfect. I can’t imagine any metal fan not being stirred by this superb combination of riffs, drumming, vocal performance and lyrics. The song simply ticks all the right boxes.

Hanged Man’s Revenge continues in a similar vein as Barn Burner, while things calm down considerably and just at the right time with These Two Hands. Don’t worry, this is not a cheesy ballad, but rather an expression of honest sadness. Death Won’t Stop Me returns to a traditional metal sound again, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Heavy metal, however, is apparently not Nate Garret’s only love. The album’s remaining three songs I Shall Return, Siren of the South and Ghost at the Gallows contain allusions to blues, stoner rock and 70s psychedelia, providing the listener with variety and widening horizons. Very well thought through and preventing monotony.

For the initiated, the worshipers of the riff, Ghost at the Gallows features a well-known, deliciously familiar sound, but a sound distilled to its essentials. The familiarity in combination with the lyrics produces a feeling of catharsis, a feeling of a higher justice being present, of the world, despite its nastiness, making sense. And who couldn’t use a bit of that?

To put it in Nate’s words: Onward! The mountain is the way.

(8/10 Slavica)

https://www.facebook.com/SpiritAdrift

https://spiritadrift.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-at-the-gallows