(written by Islander)
We don’t know precisely why the relatively new Finnish band Concrete Ghosts chose their name, but they have left clues. They describe their mission as musically documenting the slow-motion erosion of the human mind and spirit within modern structures, capturing “the precise, horrific moment where the individual is hollowed out by the very environment they are forced to inhabit”, becoming shells of what they once were.
Their thematic landscape is thus a “concrete coffin” filled with “ashen whispers” and “nauseating chemical fumes of false hope”. As further described by their label Fetzner Death Records, they document “the parasitic nature of modern life”. They stand “in the center of this human-made horror” and from that perspective “translate the crushing weight of isolation into a balance of raw aggression and layered, melancholic atmosphere” through “a bleak, chromatic production that acts as a personal record of the world’s spirit failing in real-time”.
These descriptions are based on Concrete Ghost’s debut album Echoes of the Dead World, which Fetzner Death has set for release tomorrow (February 13th) — and which we are premiering in full below. Of course, we have our own impressions to share about the music, and another way of understanding the band’s name based on what we hear.
The lyrics of the album’s eight songs are powerful, evocative, and unrelentingly bleak, a poetic yet horrifying expression of the themes described above. They are first-person narratives of awful urban environments, the greed of soulless powers, the futility of hope, and the above-described inexorable process of people being hollowed out by the conditions of life.
The narrators see themselves as utterly doomed, and often seem to hate themselves with the same intensity they express in their hatred of “dreadful streets”, “skeletal buildings”, and other people (the “circus of failures”) who crawl within them like worms.
You’ll get a sense of the lyrical misanthropy and hopelessness in the names of the songs alone, but the lyrics are even more severely crushing. There’s not even a glimpse of light, not even a hint of striving, redemption, or hope. The words portray a lethal cancer in the world, a self-inflicted disease that has no cure. The band invite us to “gaze upon a world that never wakes”.
The methods of death and doom metal that Concrete Ghost use to render their nihilistic worldview suggest that other way of understanding the band’s name referred to above. The music is capable of generating crushing heaviness, as cold and heartless as the bound aggregate. Sometimes it towers. Sometimes you can feel the edifices crumbling. Sometimes it comes crashing down.
But in the music you can also feel souls crashing down, and the hollowing out of minds and spirits, the transformation of people into ghosts — ghosts who are lost and have lost all meaning. In other words, the music can become apparitional.
Yet as you’ll discover, and as we’ll detail below, the music itself isn’t all doom and gloom. It also generates infectious energy and possesses captivating melodies. So if you’re fearful of suffocating monotony, don’t be.
You’ll get a strong sense of the band’s dynamics through the album opener “Stillborn World“. It heavily rumbles and the riffing feverishly throbs in gouging tones, but after that surging start it slows, and as scarring howls come to the front so too does a moaning, ghostly melody that oozes misery, in tandem with a moaning bass.
The music also frantically shivers and desperately shines, grievously wails and flows like rivers of tears. The vocals grow increasingly unhinged, screaming and gnashing, and periodically the band punch us in the neck. (As mentioned, the lyrics channel rage and hate, and that comes through in the voices.)
From there, “Tomb of Scars” slowly staggers and ethereally rings. Deep vocals that resemble throat singing become paired with haunted singing and shattering screams. Roiling guitars begin to sizzle, and the band also inflict slugging chugs, crystalline guitar soloing that’s again heart-sinking, and shimmers of evanescence.
One thing that becomes apparent just from the first two songs, and becomes clearer still as the album unfolds, is that concrete heaviness and apparitional lightness aren’t the band’s only ingredients, nor are death and doom.
The vocals are jaw-dropping in their intensity, especially when they explode from beastly growls into larynx-stripping screams. The music also rhythmically rocks, vigorously punches, and fiercely throbs just as often as it heaves and crawls. And more than once, strains of Finnish melodic death metal (e.g., Amorphis) come to mind.
The bass- and drum-work throughout the album is impeccable, and vital to the changing moods and energies. They do far more than simply keep time, yet their contributions are nuanced rather than “showing off”.
Other ingredients also emerge. Solemn organ-like melodies and prominent choral singing take their grieving places in the relentlessly dynamic “You Closed Your Eyes” (probably the best of all the songs IMHO), and again in “Among the Insects” (which also does sound like the mindless scurrying of insects).
“Concrete Skin” rocks and throbs with a vivid pulse, and it goes beyond the genre boundaries of death and doom in advance of an elegantly spectral interlude and an ensuing spasm of viciousness (that opening segment is also catchy as hell).
“Black Suns Hollow Lie” monstrously stomps like a striding giant but also feverishly skitters and swarms around compulsive back-beats and a beautifully wailing lead guitar, while “A Hunger For Nothingness” is heart-breaking and tormented, and the ragged and raging vocals there are especially wrenching.
The closer “In Remembrance” reaches heights of tragic grandeur but also seems to convulse in despair. Like many of the album’s songs, it draws powerful connections with melodic doom greats of the ’90s, and although it’s an emotionally stirring song the band don’t back down, even at the end, from their hopeless visions.
There really aren’t any misses here, only hits, and you can hear them for yourselves now:
CONCRETE GHOSTS is:
• T. Honkanen – Guitars
• E. Keränen – Vocals
• H. Hyytiäinen – Bass / Clean Vocals
• N. Pennanen – Drums
Echoes of the Dead World was mixed and mastered by H. Hyytiäinen. The album’s cover art was hand-painted by E. Keränen. It’s available for pre-order from Fetzner Death on CD and digital formats.
PRE-ORDER:
https://fetznerdeathrecords.de/Concrete-Ghosts
https://fetznerdeathrecords.bandcamp.com/album/concrete-ghosts-echoes-of-the-dead-world
CONCRETE GHOSTS:
https://www.instagram.com/concrete.ghosts/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589327279725