Review: The Ghost Inside - Dear Youth

“I’ve realized the more time that passes, the more we lose touch.”
Los Angeles-based hardcore quintet The Ghost Inside are back with their ambitious fourth full-length album,
Dear Youth, a kinda-sorta-concept record about reviving the unspoiled spark of youth amidst the struggle to stave off creative entropy (as outlined by frontman Jonathan Vigil in a
letter to his lost youth - SO META). Once again co-produced by Jeremy McKinnon of A Day To Remember and Andrew Wade, this is a not entirely unworthy but ultimately uneven release. Throughout, the tension between honest, genuine songs and widescreen, overproduced general market ambition (and, at times, outright pretension) is palpable, with the latter drive winning out far too often to ultimately make the record a success.
Dear Youth starts out strong, with the bracing one-two punch of “Avalanche” and “Move Me”. However, the initial momentum is fleeting. “Out of Control” and “With The Wolves” both swing wildly and miss, flirting dangerously with prefabricated, paint-by-numbers arena-core. Generic riffs and (especially) over-sweetened background vocals threaten to overwhelm the listener, so completely sapped of any signs of life underneath the pop-sugar spit-shine that you almost wonder if anyone among the assembled gaggle of “woah, oh, oh” bros had sunk into a diabetic coma during the recording process. And while “Mercy” manages to get things moving without sounding like Def Leppard after a latter-day Hot Topic makeover, “Phoenix Flame” oozes orchestrated melodrama to the point of self-parody. Its string-saturated attempt at epic majesty weighs down with pompous bloat what could have been a spare, powerful peak.
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