Nuclear Blast Records - 2025
5/10
With the mixed-bag of a trilogy behind us, it would see Ghost Bath head into 2025 with their first record outside of that frame since the debut, ultimately being what made me want to revisit the band as a whole. Given how the albums have changed from one to another while retaining the same general existential hatred (to varying degrees of success), I really had no clue what to expect going into album number five. Titled Rose Thorn Necklace, the name and album art alone makes one assume a move away from the harsher black metal sheen that coated Self Loather is imminent. I was mostly incorrect.
Being the shortest record by the band to date, this clocks in just past the thirty minute mark, continuing the more conventional song format at the expense of repetitive layering that the early albums utilized. Contrary to its look, Ghost Bath still tap deep into the black metal ground that made such a stark difference on its predecessor, however it's oddly cleaned up and refined in a way that still offers thick layers. Even on the cleaner leads, a far brighter tone is used that manages to create what I'll call "dense light." Regardless of how hard some of the erupting drums and mean shrieks come in, these always make their way to the top. Similarly, more vocal variance is used, doubling down on the death metal growls to muck up the otherwise foggy air. If that's not enough, even higher pitched versions of the howls this band became known for make their way in from time to time, if you can even picture that.
And while that latter point may seem like the main detractor to simply get past, the fact is Rose Thorn Necklace is even less remarkable than the its predecessor despite being fifteen minutes shorter. In this crunched time, there's not a single memorable track, save for maybe the borderline dance rhythms in "Vodka Butterfly" (and that's a hell of a stretch). Cleaner layers and more conventional writing is cool and all, but it's even less inspiring than before. Musically, it's still littered with random, melancholic soft passages that redo what was perfected the first time or two, offering absolutely no hooks. It's still full of campy ass sadboi songs titled like "Well, I Tried Drowning Today" and "Thinly Sliced Heart Muscle" that are too ridiculous to not be irony, but aren't. Random sections of Dennis (the sole contributor) coughing and injections of crying or moaning haven't been removed from the formula, and the areas that trade all of this for raw aggression like the riffy "Dandelion Tea" are just alright; more extreme metal by the numbers.
Maybe I'm too hard on the band overall, and maybe it's a result of tackling a style I don't often turn to, but maybe it's also just a case of certain experiments having a shelf life. I appreciate the hell out of Moonlover, and with its flaws, Funeral is at least fun in retrospect. But there really isn't too much more you can do here that isn't simply retreading former success to a less commendable degrees. The only other options are simply abandoning the depressive elements to avoid falling into self-parody by accident, or abandoning the black metal and making goth rock or post rock. The North Dakota project has done neither, and now we're at this standstill that could prove me wrong in the future, but as for now, is completely skippable.
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