After a handful of singles and cassettes the band turned in its first long player, self titled that is, through Florida’s Dying. Despite the large distance between the band’s home and its label’s, the pairing’s an apt fit. For whatever reason, most of the garage groups springing from Florida don’t traffic in the most revved up derivations of the genre. There’s a lilting quality to the whole thing, Dead Ghosts included, making works seem older and perhaps more dusty.
Yeah, Dead Ghosts have an album named Dead Ghosts and a song on that album called “Dead Ghosts.” Again, though, it’s fitting. The song’s aural qualities go a long way towards summoning spirits. It’s all lopped blues shuffle, plunking toy piano and almost passable slide guitar. If you heard this stuff coming out of your neighbor’s house, you’d think it was haunted. And that’s, obviously, the point. But it works almost effortlessly. Of course, fading the song out and bursting into the country cum Nuggets “Getting Older” is nothing short of a jolt. And while the combination of various country stylings with Dead Ghosts’ sixities’ rock stance isn’t necessarily original, Francis Harold and the Holograms are pretty adept at that pose, it’s turned in with impeccable skill. Or, at least, as much skill as necessary for an effort like this.
Distinguishing Dead Ghosts from the spate of other garage styled groups trekking overland, down freeways in vans and playing gigs every other evening isn’t too easy to do. At the same time, though, there is a level of engagement beyond the tried and true influences making these Canadians a bit more interesting than its peers. Whether or not that’s going to make a huge difference in the band’s career is up in the air. But they were able get a Vivian Girl to compose the cover art for this album. That’s kind of impressive.