KingBanana.net

I Am Ghost
• Those We Leave Behind
• Epitaph

I remember when i first heard of I Am Ghost way back in the day, I’m thinking it was 2003 and i recall the article being a “Bands you need to know” type deal. Whoever wrote the blurb compared the I Am Ghost crew to Senses Fail and My Chem, Two bands i was all about back in 03. So i went and checked out their myspace and clicked on the first song. HATED IT. Didn’t let one note that they wrote hit my ears again for 4 straight years until late 2007 when i was in my buddy Ryan’s room and he played me “Our Friend Lazarus Sleeps” from their 06 full length debut “Lovers Requiem”. Fucking loved it. Couldn’t quite nail exactly what impressed me about the sound but it just had this great Theatrical feel to it, It was like adventure metal, The Riffs were huge and the story was horror in nature (which is my bread and butter). I quickly starting eating out of the I Am Ghost cereal bowl and spinning “Lovers Requiem” on every road trip i took.

I was stoked on this new release, possibly more stoked on it then i should have been, And when the band started to fall apart, it hurt me a little bit more then it should have. Kerith and Brian (who i originally thought were brother and sister but ended up being married) Got all Mark Whalberg in there and Departed. And with them went a big part of the sound that caught my attention in the second place, The violin and the synth were pretty much done for, and the female backup vocals were now in jeopardy. But still i anticipated this album with beaded sweat. Boy if future Brenden could only quantum leap back in time and tell old Brenden to move on and forget about this band i could’ve saved like a collective 20 minutes of my life waiting for this album.

Its just not the same. “Those We Leave Behind” just doesn’t cut the cake. I’ll tell you what it leaves behind is the fans of the band. They didn’t replace the violin sound and the female vocals are still there but not as prominent. That was a HUGE part of their sound, and not its just completely absent. The album still tries to go for the dark thespian roll with huge melodies and vocal lines a plenty dedicated to dark subject matter such as zombies and graveyards (two things I’m a sucker for). But overall the album just seems like a lackluster attempt at creating their debut. This is a stereotypical sophomore slump album. The guitar is more produced leaving out some of the crunch that gave the word metal some validity when it was brought up on their past releases.

If you were a fan of the first two I Am Ghost albums then leave it at that friend. This release is forgettable and will just soil your thoughts on what this band should be. Maybe they will learn from their mistakes on this album and grow a little bit, mature their sound, and get a violin back in there.