Review: The Ghost Inside - Dear Youth

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.
Thankfully, the rest of the record mostly avoids similar overwrought production pitfalls. The driving “Dear Youth (Day 52)” and headlong “Wide Eyed” adhere to a less-is-more KISS principle, and both work damn well as a result. This is (relatively) spare, insistent modern melodic hardcore that manages to rise above the preceding Pro-Tooled morass to indeed produce something resembling authenticity (whatever that means). “My Endnote” also represents a stylistic peak, especially for those who get off on pit-killing breakdowns, while “The Other Side” and “Blank Pages” end Dear Youth on a solid but anticlimactic note.
If only every song assembled here showed similar clear-eyed dedication to vision as the final few offerings do. Less glaring, invasive studio sheen throughout might have left room for more natural, aggressive songwriting to emerge in its stead, thus doing far better justice to the deeply personal back-to-the-future concept behind Dear Youth. As it stands, while several songs are worthwhile, overall Dear Youth is a flawed, top-heavy effort that never really manages to find what The Ghost Inside are looking for.
Download: Wide Eyed
3/5
By Matthew Elliot
