"Thinking you're a ghost, dreaming you're a ghost, being a ghost, and getting good grades in school." That sounds either like a really fun "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spinoff pitch or a self-described undergraduate rock project. Naturally it's the latter, but it turns out that Ghost-- the debut from the San Diego three-piece Tape Deck Mountain-- isn't able to turn its premise into something that isn't formulaic. (Come to think of it, unless Joss Whedon really was involved, that fake TV show likely wouldn't either.)
Sadly then one of rising label Lefse Records' marquee fall releases is frustrating thanks to a feeling of rootlessness that stifles any chance of its finding a rhythm. On otherwise top cut "Dead Doctors Don't Lie", the band swaps a perfectly tenuous, lumbering 90-second stretch of feedback-slathered post-rock for three and a half minutes of corroded dialogue over an airy woodwind suite. Looped backwards. So it's not to say that Tape Deck Mountain don't have potential-- good chunks of Ghost boast bristly textures and psych-soaked noodlings that feel much richer thanks to surprisingly full-sounding production-- but it's rarely realized here, rendering this collection of songs, for the most part, inert.
Like a sort of extended jam (bookended by two proper-sounding singles, "Ghost Colony" and "Scantrons"-- two of the only songs that seem to truly adhere to the whole ghost/grades theme), most of the tracks bleed into one another, or borrow small pieces from their predecessor and transfigure them slightly, enough so we can discern one portion from another. Much of the spaced-out aimlessness of "80/20" is ramped up for that wild first quarter of "Dead Doctors"; the irritating, bland "F-" is followed by the album's real highlight "On My Honor", which affords the album some necessary "bigness" it sorely lacks. Like an embryonic Spoon demo, "Honor"'s pre-programmed bossa nova beats and dead-eyed sing-along chorus feel on the money.
However, as with almost everything else on Ghost, that too is swiftly marred by frontman Travis Trevisan's flat, self-aware delivery-- "Man down, dead on the field/ Wolves eat all of his meat/ Now I know the the pain, and I question the game," could've worked as pure camp, but not when presented so pensively. So even in those fleeting moments when there actually is something to sink your teeth into-- the dissonant decay on the back half of "In the Dirt" or the spooked-out tones on "Ghost Colony"-- most of the energy you'll burn exercising these inane couplets from your mind ("Please don't marry that asshole Larry/ I know he'll move the place you're buried, next to me") provides little patience for much else.
Maybe it's just that Tape Deck Mountain suffer from some rare form of test anxiety. There are plenty of cues to be taken that would lead you to believe that if given a little space, TDM could properly expand some of these ideas and build something more expansive and full, most likely in a live setting. The singles might provide some of the clearest insight here: Opener "Scantrons" isn't very memorable, but something in Trevisan's approximation of Ian Curtis' "Atmosphere"-cribbing lilt, coupled with those portentous drums, produces a feeling of real possibility. Even on the mundane "Ghost Colony" (which kind of sounds like a Thursday throw-away at half-speed), the bigger moments-- where guitars crash and sequencers explode-- offer helpful hints. But Ghost rarely does get the hint, often left too slight and too self-important for it's own good. In the future, hopefully TDM will take some time to carefully read the intructions and sharpen those No. 2s before making their mark, heavy and dark.
