★★★★
Two years might not seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things – hell, no-one calls a two-year-old baby ‘old’ – but that certainly doesn’t mean a lot can’t happen in that time period.
Brendan Lukens and Jake Ewald – otherwise known as the singing, guitar-playing and songwriting half of Philadelphia’s Modern Baseball – have had their respective battles to fight in their immediate personal lives in the time since breakthrough second album You’re Gonna Miss It All. As such, Holy Ghost is as much an exercise in catharsis as it is an exorcising of demons.
In its sub-half-hour runtime, it deals with love, loss, distance, denial and self-destruction across college rock guitars and skate-punk drums, derived from a diet of Replacements and Get Up Kids records. A lot to take in? Certainly – especially when you factor in the songs’ lengths averaging anywhere between one and two minutes.
Even so, Ewald, Lukens and co. manage to not only convey their innermost feelings and interpersonal conflicts, but drive them home in a way that they’ve never quite done on such a scale previously.
For better and for worse, in sickness and in health, Holy Ghost is growing up.
Modern Baseball’sHoly Ghostis out now on Run For Cover/Cooking Vinyl.
