DM Stith - Heavy Ghost

I, as a reviewer, single Heavy Ghost out in the line-up of 2009. Why? Because of its delicate nature that softly dances above the clouds, but at the same time digs its way deep into the ground and hides away. Its extremely beautiful and a good one to listen to while laying in the grass, watching the clouds. But some songs kind of toughen up and use a more primitive beat to keep the record dancing at it's tip-toes. Let's imagine there are clouds underground. That's probably the best way to describe most songs on Heavy Ghost. And with its bizarre, pushy chord changes, it's really unpredictable, and hard to guess what's around the corner. Almost impossible, actually. Heavy Ghost starts off with just the simplicity of a minor chord quickly changed to a major chord on Issac's Song. In comes the sound of David Stiths several overlapped, faint voices delicately touching the outermost brim of "hearable". He then, out of the blue, changes the chords, as if he had a list of all the possible piano chords, blindfolded himself, and picked them out one by one with his finger. And the result was just the perfect sequence. But somehow, he manages to return to the same two chords. It then quickly moves on to Creekmouth, one of those songs dug deep into the ground, as I mentioned. Again, filled with several overlapped voices to give it harmony. As the album slowly rolls along, the vibrato of a few violins and a cello makes its way into Fire of Birds, a track that sounds nothing like birds on fire, but maybe a gathering around a campfire lead by african drums. After that comes Morning Glory Cloud, for which the mist that was forming a thick cloud covering-up the album starts to clear up, and you can hear some more lightheartedness. But the lyrics and melody still keep a kind of mysterious nature to them, which is always good. Then five and a half minutes of Braids of Voices really clears up and adds a somewhat sad and cold anatomy. But watch out, because just when you think the song has kind of been dragging on, in comes the turn around of, once again, the primitive beats that pick it up off the ground, or maybe pull it back down from the sky to give it the feel of, for example, the end of a chapter in a children's book. Finally, we have the song Wig, which is so much like Motion Picture Soundtrack on Kid A. It's like a big fat resolution at the end of a book, tying up everything to give it a bold conclusion. But even though it's the end, it's still just so fogged-up with mystery. Maybe it would have been cool to end the album with the beginning of Isaac's Song. But hey, it's not my record. And it's certainly different from anything else out there. I'm glad. Too many people worry about their album being liked by everyone because it's the same stuff, or it's exciting and happy and cheerful and all that crap. It's not exactly a bad thing to have music to cheer you up, but there's just so much of it. I hope this was useful to you, and I hope you will at least listen to some of the songs. 8 out of 10 stars.



-Julian