Ghouli is a Richmond hardcore band who I discovered on Bandcamp because of the reaper image in the album art (confession time: I will click on just about anything that has a cloaked skeleton on the cover). I didn't know what to expect, but (Spoilers!) the reaper image ended up telling me a lot about the band. Ghouli's sound is an incredible throwback to the early days of punk and thrash cross-pollination, especially the exchange of ideas that was happening in England during the early '80s. This is a roundabout way of saying, they remind me more than a little bit of Sacrilege, and this fact is causing me to salivate to the point where I may need to position a bucket under my face to finish this review. Their 2018 demo had an ambitious rock revival edge to it, and while the roots of those early tracks survive on rollicking, speedfreak forays like "Don't Touch Me," their latest release
Nothing has a much darker and heavy in tone. On
Nothing, Ghouli is a metal corrugated, toothy exhibition of gothic proto-doom thrash, which moves with a phantasmal air of seething righteous anger. The howling ode to self-destruction "Coffin" quivers with anticipation of its own assured demise. Death rock rules the mind space of tracks like "Aka Prozac" while on "Abandonded House" reeling, landslide thrash barriers the listener under a heap of splintering guitars and accumulated emotional baggage. It's all exciting stuff, but my favorite two tracks on the album by far are the haunted mind game of "Ryan" with lyrics that portray the permeation between our world and the realm of apparitions, where the ramping nature of the chord progressions and gnashing grooves sell the psychological toll these encounters with the dead have on the author; and the torturously plodding gloom garage of "Top Boy" with its folding chords, creeping bassline, and lyrics that hint at a perverse overlap of sadism and empathy. Ghouli is a band that is incredibly comfortable in the dark and dangerous subject matter they explore and deliver their message with unassuageable confidence. If you're curious about the darker side of today's punk scene, then
Nothing, is if nothing else, definitely worth your time.
Grab a copy of
Nothing from Doctor and Mechanic Recordings,
here.
