Album Review :: Holy Ghost! - Work

Album

Holy Ghost!

Work

June 21 2019 (West End Records)

8.5/10

Words: Sam Hope

As much as its singles are enjoyed by the masses now, disco is still often seen as a dirty word in music, viewed as providing all hedonism with no substance. Yet Holy Ghost!’s exploration of it in their latest effort, teaming up with iconic pioneers of the genre West End Records, produces an album worthy of both the label’s original fame, and a reminiscent view of the movement. Finding solace and comfort in nostalgia for the resurrected music, their lyrical take on nu-disco as a desire and cry for the return of times gone by extends the album beyond just a collection of catchy hits.

Initially breaking into popularity with their alternative synth-pop adventures under James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem’s famed DFA Records, Nick Millhiser and Alex Frankel's music has changed considerably since their breakthrough single 'Hold On' in 2007. Leaving DFA, they release this album under West End Records, acting as the first new music under the iconic disco pioneers in over 30 years.

This label shift can immediately be seen musically in the album’s opener and first singles, 'Epton on Broadway Parts 1&2'. Full of guitar licks and dancey piano chords immersed in a smooth synthetic background, the introduction to this album immediately puts us in the nu-disco scene, echoing the sounds of other contemporaries such as Daft Punk and Parcels. Yet unlike others, their lyrics force us to reconsider disco, and how its loss represents a loss of something greater.

“There’s nowhere really left to go, all our favourite places closed”, opine the duo in the very first lyrics of the album. With the loss of iconic monuments of New York culture like Studio 54 and Kim’s Video & Music, they are brutally aware of the slow collapse of the globally dreamed of Bohemian culture of the city.

Even in the way they make their music though, Holy Ghost! seek to reject this. With their downsizing, the band revealed that with their production has been restricted down to two classic synthesisers, the Yamaha CS80 and the Mini Moog, staples of the era. However, they show life is possible beyond popular death, creating their most luxe-fuelled and grandest songs to date. Shown in the slow, almost ballad-esque 'Heavens Knows What', driven by beautiful Rhodes piano sounds and desperation calling through with wailing guitars, this move away from catchiness is new, yet foreshadowed in the sadness at the root of their sentimentality.

Yet this reach for blissful ignorance is self-aware. “And you could say it was stupid, stupid, stupid / But we’re not about to let go”, the duo chant as the hook to their follow-up single, 'Do This'. With this pre-emptive counter of inevitable criticism, they get so far as holding up a mirror to themselves, yet fearfully refuse to really look into it. With all of this set in an irresistibly catchy song, it’s hard not to want to dance along with them, blasting music over all fears and doubters.

This gleeful on-the-run return to disco is nowhere better shown than in the closer, the album’s and possibly the band’s overall best track, 'Escape From Los Angeles'. The very core of the disco era runs right the way through the dance-driven beat of this song, from its clashing glitzy arpeggiated synthesisers to its four to the floor beat. Even in its seven-minute run time, sticking faithfully to a pumping beat whilst ever developing with the addition and evolution of unending layers of synthesisers, the same loveable character as such disco classics as Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' is brought to the song.

Ultimately, nostalgia rears its head once again to drive this track from beginning to end, both placing you in the high of a Studio 54 night and in a sad modernity, recognising the effect of times lost. “We could live in the echoes of favourite records, we are lost but we are doing quite alright”, they harmonise, as the music draws you back to the glamorous 70s. This desperate clinging onto the past, recognising its unsustainability yet seeking refuge in its comfort with no plans of change, acts as a near perfect metaphor for nu-disco in a modern era dominated by hip-hop and similarly influenced pop, with the pervading view of their music still set by Dahl's Disco Demolition Night.

The repetition of “echoes of echoes” to close the track and project acts as the album’s own review flawlessly. It doesn’t break ground, nor does it seek to, it works as the echo of eras gone by, melancholically realising its role yet brilliantly and consolingly choosing no other way.