Album Review: Love Ghost X SKOLD – Love Ghost SKOLD

The Breakdown

For those in the know, the album sounds like everything you expect. For those that aren't in the know, you are in for something unique and rather special.

– 8.8

With creepy electric beginnings, welcome to the musical world of Love Ghost and Skold, i.e., US indie/alt-rock maverick Love Ghost (Finnegan Bell) and Swedish industrial music legend SKOLD (Tim Skold). For those in the know, the album sounds like everything you expect. For those that aren’t in the know, you are in for something unique.

We start properly with one of the album singles, ‘Nightshade And Cocaine’. A fiery blend of rock guitar and harsh electronics. Their voices blend well with enough talent between them to craft something a little special. The tension of the verses and the explosive choruses sucks the listener straight in. The duo have crafted an album that reflects their view of the darker aspects of the world—something they are not strangers to in their separate projects.

A burst of urban gothic punk with ‘Great White Buffalo’ thats guitar heavy. Vicious shimmering verses give way to smouldering choruses mirroring the partnership with Skolds’ harsher elements, which are soothed by Bell’s golden voice. The album has a softer centre that sees Love Ghosts more melodic influence take over. The album gets a chance to breathe with tracks ‘You Are The Gun (Valhalla)’, led by Bell’s vocals, it’s grave and slow with the menace taking a step back. That tense nervousness of Skold enters a big way in ‘Cemetery’ with the sharp strings and subtle percussion.

‘The Star Of The Show’ brings Skolds harsh electronics more to the front but muted than the album opener. ‘Spacedust’ is the glittering centre of the album. Acoustic and drawn-out organ notes: Skolds’ heavier baritone adds substance to Bell’s more emotive voice below. The two together bring a touch of beauty to the stark, immersive landscape. You can’t just stick this album in the background. It demands attention to get the best out of it. It is crucial to hear every hair-raising synth fuzziness or scratch of guitar and, perhaps more importantly, the thought-provoking lyrics, which can sometimes be lost within the production.

The tense and spectacular ‘Hold On’ turns the dials up after the minimalistic sonic of ‘Stardust’. And like that, the electronics get deep and gloomy with the second single, ‘Ski Mask’. The drums pick things up as the album wakes up from its slumber. The driving pop chorus is excellent and the product of what these two create. It flows on a sonic wave as it builds and builds. Payback was the first glimpse of the duo’s collaboration and felt like a track that only these two could create.

Skold is cranked up with the paranoid unsettledness seen in his solo work, just with the added bonus of Bells’ vocals adding some colour, as demonstrated on ‘The Heavy Weight’. With the addition of Love Ghost, we have a thicker industrial sound, with both artists bringing their talents to the fore. Bringing the album to an end with some groove with ‘Level up’ before ending on how the whole thing started with a powerful electronic trip that is ‘Less Than Zero’.

Here, you can hear what both these guys have brought to the album’s tracks. The album is stark at times, but there are moments here that are full of beauty, contrasting with buzzing heavier rock and industrial coldness, which allows those moments of beauty to be picked out. The one thing I have always liked about these two, Skold in particular, is that their music is made their way and done for the music fans inside them.

Check out Nightshade and Cocaine, below: