By Berlinda Recacho
Imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery. Only flattery isn't at all sincere since it has an agenda. Maybe it's more true to look to the past and call it inspiration when creating new music that sounds like it hails from an earlier era. If I didn't know that Absolute Reality, the fetching album by Holiday Ghosts was a new release, I might have thought it had been around for years. The more I listened to it, the more I started to feel that I've always known these songs, which cleverly borrow influences without being derivative. The band varies its sound from upbeat to moody, with Katja Ratkin (drums) and Sam Stacpoole (guitar) trading duties on some tracks, singing together on others, with a smart pop sensibility as the common thread. I often prefer demos to polished final versions; the production values here are stripped down, in keeping with lo-fi recordings on four-track recorders that capture songs in the spirit that they were written.
Absolute Reality charts an intriguing path from catchy, jangly pop to moody soundscapes without missing a beat. Katja takes the lead in "Favourite Freak" which again partners guitar and bass, with quick lyrics squeezed into a measure: "Sand in my shoes and sugar in my heart... I open like a lily and close like a star." With the quirky confidence of Kirsty MacColl in "Limbo" she notes: "There is no thrill in being ill/if you never get to lead... Downtown walks with me/Red skies will burn TVs, Louder than sanity/Limbo always with me". An acoustic lament in the vein of Mazzy Star’s "Fade into You", "Blue" "can break your heart... where the earth begins... where the water lands... what I see at night... just before I shake the light". In the title song, Katja intones a litany of the everyday over a bass-drum kick and a mournful guitar riff, and never has ephemera sounded so hypnotically alluring:
"I pop the hoops of a chicken soup/I'm going home
The supermarket sells me treats/tinfoil moons and a parakeet
Absolute reality/and dinner for two…The sun is out but the rain is near."
In "Rocket", Sam mashes up the swagger of T. Rex's "Bang a Gong (Get It On)" with the hooky refrains of The Kinks. "Again and Again" is the jangly twee charm of Heavenly as interpreted by The Clash. "B. Truck" channels early R.E.M. in a playful litany: "Soda Jerk/Men at Work/The salad days are falling out of my hand". A fight song in psychological terms, "Fight or Flight" employs strummy-rhythm fast riffs on the lead guitar tongue in groove with adept basslines like Johnny Marr and Andy Rourke did so memorably in The Smiths.
"Driving out to the boondocks/You're never coming home.
Calling all debutantes/dances under the moon
Saw your name in the spotlight/sad you're leaving so soon Last train til the morning/you could've bet it was/fight or flight."
Sam and Katja spar on "Vulture", a paranoid ramble with shades of Billy Idol's "White Wedding". Again, a driving bassline emerges between the guitar in perfect time: "If I go left and you go right, no room in the middle on a frozen night/'Cause when I paint it, I paint it well/I can't stand the spell/ of grand illusion". In the haunting "Lose the Game" they sound more like one voice, but the acoustic melody belies the tension in realizing that you're stuck (maybe willingly) in a holding pattern because it's easier than trying to change. "Evenings are mine/Idle and full of consequence/Time and I/ fall down the rabbit hole again/Friendship that dies/how do I pay my way out?"
All the tightly wound intentions unravel in the closing track, where structure coalesces into subdued melody like Velocity Girl's Copacetic semi-instrumentals "Candy Apples" or "A Chang". A lyrical line from "Big Cold River" sums up the whole album: "I choose my disguise/ but I cannot leave this beating heart behind." We're lucky to be at this point in time with such a rich collection of music to draw from. Holiday Ghosts mines a myriad of influences in the best way possible: by understanding what came before in order to honor it, and being agile enough to express their own sentiments and ideas. The result is 37 minutes that will segue into your rotation so seamlessly that you won't want to remember a time without them.
Aboslute Reality by Holiday Ghosts is out now. Details below.
[Photo: Holiday Ghosts Bandcamp]