A full five years on from the time Ghost guns-'n'-rosered their discography with
the simultaneous release of two longplayers — Snuffbox Immanence and Tune
In, Turn On, Free Tibet — the unwashed acid-folk hippies have
finally gotten around to reconvening and making a follow-up. After slowly
building up (and up) their Gong'd-out gear through such choice discs
as Ghost Temple Stone and Lamarabirabi, Masaki Batoh's
free-wheelin' free-playin' freakniks went for broke with that making-two-albums-at-once
gesture, the lengthy layoff since seeming to suggest that the grandness
of these two discs — both records dueling to be the grandest evocation
of Ghost in the band's canon — left the combo artistically exhausted.
In the time since, their three main men — Batoh, Kurihara, Ogino — hooked
up with holy folkie sweethearts Damon & Naomi on their luminous With
Ghost longplayer; and Kurihara has since gone on to solo his way
away in the D&N live show, his nimble-fingered electric leads heard all
over the D&N live-show disc Song to the Siren: Live in San Sebastian.
Whilst the Acid Mothers Temple crew have released upwards of 50 records
in the same five-year span (no, really), ensconcing themselves in the
pop-cultural consciousness as the pre-eminent J-psych troupe, Ghost have
been invisible, out of sight and out of mind, their presence lingering
only in an almost-forgotten spirit. Hypnotic Underworld, the band's
seventh album, heralds their return, though you'd be hard pressed to
convince anyone this is Ghost returning at the top of their game, still
holding fort on high at the top of the psych-rock mountain. Rather, it
finds a grown-up Ghost, recording in clearer fidelity with clearer focus
and, perhaps, a clearer state of mind, this grown-up Ghost keen on veering
into creepy ambience, free-jazz flourishes, Celtic folk vibes, and some
of the straightest psychedelia they've offered thus far. The record even
starts out with a titular piece that showcases much of this recent wanderlust,
its opening four-song suite starting in desolate soundtracking before
finding the combo settling into a strangely tasteful gait, one whose
chops-ness doesn't, thankfully, set a tone for the rest of the disc.
Still, with a curious, unctuous opening like that, Hypnotic Underworld is,
paradoxically, actually the least hypnotic and least underground album
Ghost have made thus far, seeming to be born of a new band, one reconvening
after the initial thrust has worn off, one seeing what being Ghost means
15 years after their beginning. Thereby, it's not a band captured in
full flight, but, rather, a band getting back on the bike. And the success
of this new-again endeavor is best surmised like this: this disc finds
its greatest success when Ghost cover others, with the standout songs
being versions of tunes by Earth & Fire and Syd Barrett, no less.
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