And then, there were two. The last time we heard from School of Seven Bells, there were three people in the band; and, more importantly, we didn’t think they had an album like this in them. That is not to say that Alpinisms and Disconnect from Desire weren’t great albums – they were – but what separates Ghostory from the band’s previous output is that it is on another level entirely. On the whole it’s a more accessible body of work, and works extremely well from start to finish.
The duo’s shoegaze and dream-pop tendencies have been mixed in with some flat-out electro-pop, and the result is a winning combination that seems to get better with each listen – and their new album is exactly the kind of listen that reveals hidden depths as time goes by. It’s an album that creates its own special sort of atmosphere, something that is hinted at by the evocative cover art.
With all this said, though, for some, this album is going to be all about the songs that were released ahead of it: The Night and the effortlessly replayable Lafaye. Those two songs are arguably the most immediate on offer on Ghostory, and believe me, I know how easy it is to get stuck on the latter, but it’s a testament to its brilliance that I’m still playing the living daylights out of it since I first heard it last month.
The record is 9 songs long, but stretches to 45 minutes, something which is helped by its sprawling eight-and-a-half-minute closer, When You Sing, which could be called the pinnacle of the SVIIB catalogue to date, though it faces some stiff competition from the aforementioned songs. Now I think about it, actually, the strength-in-depth that Ghostory possesses ensures that I will be listening to it for quite a while yet – not that it’s an album that gets old quickly.
There’s enough diversity on offer to ensure that this doesn’t stand a chance of happening. Away from its poppier lead singles, there’s the pure shoegaze of Show Me Love and the strangely menacing, Krautrock-influenced Low Times, which gets a lot of mileage out of six-and-a-half minutes while making it sound like it lasts half that time, relying on repetition but making sure to keep things interesting, and not to mention intense. Here is an album that manages to balance light and shade in an excellent fashion, and waste not a second of its running time while doing so. It’s not an especially scary Ghostory, but it’s an extremely exciting one.
http://soundcloud.com/vagrantrecords/sets/school-of-seven-bells-2/
Ghostory is released on February 27th through Full Time Hobby
[PRE-ORDER] School of Seven Bells – Ghostory @ iTunes | Amazon
