The adventure continues for The Ghost Inside.
Formed in 2004 in the USA, the band gradually climbed the ladder until their tragic accident in 2015. Hope reborns in 2018, and is confirmed with a new album in 2020, followed by international concerts. In 2024, Jonathan Vigil (vocals), Zach Johnson (guitar/vocals), Jim Riley (bass), Andrew Tkaczyk (drums) and Chris Davis (guitar/vocals) announced the release of Searching For Solace, their sixth album, on Epitaph Records.
The album kicks off with the catchy Going Under, an early composition that emphasizes the balance between clean and saturated vocals, with effective riffs creating heady melodies in contrast to Death Grip, where violence strikes all the time. Heaviness and dissonant harmonics take turns under the howls of this vindictive track, then the airy leads resurface with Light Years and its catchy choruses, but also this motivating break made for live performance. The band will have no trouble rallying crowds with this track, just as they do with Secret and its thick saturated groove, which contrasts with the softer passages dominated by clean vocals before blending the two worlds. Split brings the guitars to the fore with ominous tones that sometimes relay the massive rhythm with its raw Hardcore influences, then the band returns to a more accessible, soaring approach with Wash It Away and its aggressive duality, which ends up merging again. Gentleness returns with Cityscapes’s soothing introduction, followed by haunting riffs where vocal parts navigate while remaining in this calm atmosphere, before giving way once again to fury on Earn It, where heaviness and jerky patterns create an overpowering sound. We continue with Wrath, a composition with an equivocal name whose incessant moshparts will create more or less organized crowd movements, then with Reckoning, which adopts relatively modern, chopped-up elements to support its message. We’ve already reached the end of the album with Breathless, which reverts to Old School tones with piercing harmonics to get us moving one last time, while singing along with the band on the choruses.
The Ghost Inside confirms its obvious motivation with Searching For Solace. Whether the album contains a few angry tracks, it also remains in the melodious unifying vein that has enabled it to conquer stages the world over.
75/100
