Huge Ghost - Curtains Drawn

Huge Ghost

Curtains Drawn
self-released; 2016

​3.9 out of 5

By Jamie Robash

I often find myself longing for the old days. You know when times were simpler. Things with machines have really gotten out of hand. I know I sound like I’m a thousand years old but really I think we’ve lost our way as a society and I don’t think I’m alone but I think people have gotten too lazy to try and fight back the urge to do something anymore. I mean there are such things as Twitter wars. How friggin lazy are you? What happened to fisticuffs?

Maybe I’m the product of my environment, the hustle and bustle of Chicago.  But after listening to the three tracks on Curtains Drawn EP by Starkville, Mississippi blues-rock trio Huge Ghost I started thinking well maybe not. These guys are all over the social media: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. yet Curtains Drawn was recorded live and had very little done with it afterwards.

The slow-fi Ryan Adams-esque opening tune “Curtains Drawn” was recorded in one take. Like Adams’ tunes it’s full of soft and somber biographical metaphors “an apple in your brothers eye / a dagger in your father’s side” singer Joe Whaley laments with a twang as he picks precisely at the saddest strings a guitar can play, backed by the quickened heartbeat bass line of Ben Hodge and the soft ripened beats of drummer Troy DeRego.

​Next we’re ushered into the familiar world of country-blues rock riffs on “Silver and Gold” a song that is simple sounding but with great effect. It’s a shoulder shaker with garage rock roots and lyrics that don’t try to outdo themselves. It hits that perfect three-and-a-half minute mark that keeps the listener both satisfied and yet hungry for more. The dessert of this little three song effort comes in the form of the mid-tempo blues rocker “Nobody’s Girl” the quintessential left and leaving song. The song every man has had to write at some point in his life. 

Huge Ghost, like me, is a product of their environment. As someone said to me today, “In the grand scheme of things what’s the use of worrying seeing as everything has already been decided anyway.” It seemed very prolific even though as he said it he handed me the slice of pizza that I had just ordered. But it made sense. With Curtains Drawn Huge Ghost isn’t doing anything new. But that’s not their thing. They’re doing something that’s been done a million times over, but they are doing it well and that’s what really matters. Never forget.

youtube

official website

Tweet