Ghosts at Sea - Hymns of Our Demise
Sometimes all the pieces come together exactly the right way and the whole is inexplicably greater than the sum of its parts. This happens when Ghosts at Sea slows down and gets gloomy, as in the flawlessly ominous dirge “The End of Days.” I always listen to whatever I’m reviewing several times, in an attempt to understand it as well as I am able. Hymns of Our Demise was not at all difficult to decipher. It’s 21st century Black Metal with the appropriate and expected speed and atmosphere, plus more than a little Doom injected into its veins, very well done and certainly interesting enough, but not exactly astonishing. Except for the aforementioned stunner “The End of Days,” which I could not help but continually repeat 18 times. There are other moments of such excellence throughout the album, especially in “The Weight of 1000 Suns” and sparsely scattered within the fourteen-minute closer, “Through the Shadow That Bind Us,” but only once does this Indiana/Kentucky team achieve full-song perfection. The United States isn’t exactly a hotbed of quality Black Metal (with a few notable exceptions, of course!), and I think that I can count the number of premium USBM bands from right here in Indiana on one cloven hoof, so obviously I’ll be keeping an ear on Ghosts at Sea. Will this despondent duo find a way to more seamlessly integrate different tempos? Or perhaps drop the faster stuff altogether and fully embrace the crushing despair of a glacial pace, which works so well for them whenever they do it? Hymns of Our Demise feels a bit disjointed, but the potential is clearly here for its follow-up to be a true masterpiece.
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