Ghost Capsules: Ghost Capsules

It’s rather trendy these days to reference the supernatural world. There are bands out there with names such as Team Ghost and Ghost Bunny, and even Iron and Wine got in on the act recently by naming an album Ghost on Ghost. Well, Ghost Capsules just adds to that trend. The brainchild of Tim Simenon of Bomb the Bass fame, Ghost Capsules is a dark electro European outfit that just happens to be trying to catch a trendsetter’s wave in other ways. How so? The very first song on their self-titled LP is called, groan, “Game of Thrones”. Yep, this is a group trying to tie into a series of popular fantasy books and a successful American cable TV series of the same name. So how much you’re willing to forgive this band for riding on the coattails of other things is contingent on how you feel about such appropriations.

If that were only the least of Ghost Capsules’ problems, though. The material on Ghost Capsules is hardly memorable, with songs crashing into songs and each one sounding almost exactly like a virtual carbon copy of what just preceded it. Granted, “Magnetic Fields” is kind of catchy in an early Depeche Mode kind of way. “This Capsule of Me” does also boast a buoyant Blondie-ish chorus. Final song “Another Earth” has a giddy and deep throb to it that’s memorable. And vocalist Laura Gomez has a very pixie-ish, ethereal voice that is certainly cut from a slightly different cloth and is appealing to hear. However, the lack of distinction between much of these songs is a cause of concern, and listeners may find their attention drifting the longer one gets into this nine-song, 36-minute LP. That’s surprising, considering its main creator’s pedigree. In the long run, fans of deep thudding indie dance rhythms may want to give this a … groan … ghost of a chance. But Ghost Capsules fails to encapsulate what makes dance music so vital, making it hardly necessary. Maybe this might have been better as an EP, where the similarities between songs could have been more easily digestible, and the highlights would have really stood out.