About 2 years or so ago, I stumbled across Vancouver’s Dead Ghosts on YouTube. I was instantly hooked. I can’t really explain why. The vocals were fuzzy, but the tunes definitely weren’t. They sounded kinda garage, kinda surf – the perfect balance.
That song was Summer With Phil. I investigated further and it turned out that was the tip of the iceberg of so many great tunes. They’d just released their second album, which I bought immediately, and it was one of 2013’s highlights. With a great deal of difficulty, I also managed to track down possibly the last copy of their first album from 2010 which at that point was out of print and not even available digitally.
They even used some footage from He Man and the Masters of the Universe, which was a hung over Saturday morning TV must-see back in the 80s for me, in their video for On Your Own – He Man has never looked cooler.
In April last year I travelled to Manchester from Glasgow, alone, to see these guys live. I can’t even begin to say how tremendous they were. Energy oozed, and the fact they opened with one of their best songs, the outstanding Roky Said, shows the confidence they have in their abilities.
Why there isn’t a huge fuss about them is a great mystery to me. True, there is nothing massively original about their sound – and there’s a lot of garage rock out there. But they are consistently good – both albums have definite highs but there are absolutely no lows.
Having said that, every time I posted a tune of theirs on Twitter, I’d get positive comments from those new to them, together with complaints that it was a nightmare finding their albums anywhere. Fortunately Burger Records have reissued both so you have no excuses not to investigate further now.
They return with their third album on 16 October, and have just aired a new song on YouTube, Drink It Dry. The vocals are less fuzzy this time out but everything else is Dead Ghosts as we know them.
Their profile is growing, slowly but surely. Don’t ask me why I love them….I just DO.
Follow them on Twitter and Instagram: @deadghosts
@northseacrashes
