Ghosts are supposed to be scary. This band is as scary as a carton of milk.
After years of floating around the fringes of the big time, and in various incarnations, Ghosts have landed a deal, almost completed their debut album and are ready to stake their claim as the melancholic pop act of the year. "But are they any good?" I hear you cry. "The answer is no", I cry...and believe me, I almost did cry...
'Stay The Night' is a terribly humdrum 03:45. The unbelievably dire synth horns and strings aside (they're one of my pet hates - surely the record company could have stumped up a few bob for some living, breathing reed nuzzlers and cat-nip strokers), the rag-a-tag-tag-raga-muffin beat is as repetitive as a Steve Reich album on loop; the guitarist seems to have laid down his track in his sleep (while listening to Dire Straits) and just to top it all off, the production is as bland as a Quorn curry.
Harsh you cry? Well get this: the vocals, courtesy of Simon Pettigrew (get all thoughts of Harry Potter out of your head this instant - THOSE BOOKS ARE FOR CHILDREN) are particularly weak. He can carry a tune, no doubt about it - but then so could Sinita - and she sounds like Maria Callas compared to this guy. There's no bad-a-bing, no chutzpah: no balls.
Lyrically speaking, I couldn't detect any of the "brooding emotion, sweetness and turbulence" I was promised and instead (and this is no lie) got so bored half-way through, that I decided to defrost the freezer, while Pettigrew whittled on, trying to convince some chick to eat his pillow.
Other reviewers would probably use the phrase "inoffensive pop" to describe this lacklustre offering. I'm not going to. For me, 'Stay The Night' is undeniably offensive. It's banal, tedious, ineffectual claptrap that deserves to be swiftly thrown into the clearance bin of every record store trading today...I think HMV still qualifies. And even then, I'd advise them to mark its price lower than Peter Andre & Jordan's last single.
Stay the night? I wouldn't let Ghosts stay a second. Get back to purgatory where you belong, never to return...
...well, until Derek Acorah gets a bit bored and fancies tormenting the fuck out of Yvette Fielding that is...