Ten years is a long time to leave a monster in the basement, especially when you know it has been down there learning new tricks. Ghosts In The Graveyard return to their 2016 debut, Monsters For The Masses, with the zeal of directors who finally found the budget they wanted the first time around. Monsters For The Masses: Resurrected tears into the old recordings with fresh programming, heavier production, electronic detail, and the accumulated bad habits of a band that has spent a decade getting better at making darkness dance.
The real kick comes from hearing Byron C. Miller’s younger self dragged into the present without sanding away the cheap-horror charm. Miller had just come out of eight years with God Module when the original record took shape, and you can still feel a frontman figuring out how much theater, electronics, guitar damage, and personal debris he could cram into his own clubhouse.
“This album means the world to me,” gushes Miller. “After 8 years in God Module, this was the first music project I put together, the first time I was writing most of the lyrics, defining the aesthetic. The interludes on this album are made from cassette recordings I did when I was a little kid trying to be scary. In many ways these songs are the first half of my life as song. I’m so glad that my bandmate, music creator, Paul Morgan, was able to take everything he’s learned and go in and rebuild these tracks from the original recordings. I love how these new mixes were mastered by our pal, Chris Longo. This is how the album was always meant to sound!”
Directed by Byron C. Miller and shot by cinematographer Paul Morgan, the Monster Mask video follows an eerie little vignette in which a woman’s peace is abruptly disturbed. We’ll leave the rest of the plot buried where it belongs, since spoiling horror is the cultural equivalent of telling somebody what is inside the coffin before they pry it open. One practical warning, however: the video contains extensive flashing lights, so viewers with photosensitivity should approach accordingly.
Watch the video for Monster Mask: Resurrected below:
Ghosts In The Graveyard know horror works best when somebody is having too much fun with it. “Better In Black: Resurrected Version” comes back with its teeth filed to fresh points, Paul Morgan rebuilding the track from the original masters while preserving the sleazy romantic pull that made it central to the band’s identity. Monster Mask: Resurrected Version sinks lower and stranger, bringing dark trip-hop tension into the graveyard.
Then there is Debonair, the sole new recording, a cover of The Afghan Whigs that gives the project its best excuse for existing beyond anniversary bookkeeping. It has the heat of a band testing an old skeleton under stage lights, turning the album into a current document with ten years of dirt under its fingernails.
Ghosts In The Graveyard still love blood, monsters, desire, death, and all the lurid furniture, yet the stronger point is how seriously they take the pleasure of performance. Resurrection becomes vandalism with better equipment, a chance to exhume their younger selves, hand them louder machinery, and see what starts moving.
Listen to Monster Mask: Resurrected below and purchase the single here.
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The post Ghosts In The Graveyard Dig Up Their Debut for “Monsters For The Masses: Resurrected” — Watch the Video for “Monster Mask” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.
