Track Premiere: ghostar—”A Haunting In Two Parts”

Posted: by The Editor

ghostar, photo by Sydney Hiser

ghostar are a band from Madison, WI who make the type of surging emo/post-rock/shoegaze/whatever that sounds particularly essential right now (see: Stay Inside’s album from earlier this year). The Madison, WI band began as a two-piece and put out an EP last October that has more of a churning shoegaze vibe than their latest single, a seven-minute sidewinder called “A Haunting In Two Parts” that we’re premiering below. This song splits the difference between Glocca Morra-style emo (sweaty, yelpy vocal deliveries for hooks that are just out of their range) and the house-up-in-flames intensity of Greet Death, early TWIABP, and the climactic screamo of a band like State Faults. There are moments that remind me of Origami Angel and there are moments that remind me of No Age. You’re getting both with ghostar!

According to the band, this track is divided into two movements (“Part I: Mortuary” and “Part 2: Hereditary”). I’m not familiar enough with the 1983 slasher flick Mortuary to tell if “Part 1” is a direct retelling, but the lyrics from “Part 2” are basically the major plot points of Hereditary channeled into an emo song. “Cut your head off, sever all ties” and “I can’t miss you, when you refuse to die” actually work as pretty effective metaphors when they’re plucked from their very literal contexts within the film itself. The low-budget production on this track detracts a little bit from the sheer epicness of its last minute-and-a-half, but it’s forgivable because ghostar have the ambition and the technical ability (they shred) to make something truly gigantic. Someone should, eh-hem, get them hooked up with a Nick Diener type to really make that shit pop.

Until then, check out the seasonally appropriate video for “A Haunting In Two Parts”:


Check out ghostar on Bandcamp


Eli Enis | @eli_enis


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