In Stormy Nights

Combining pan-Asian traditional music with British hard rock and American psychedelia is just one of the many tricks up Ghost's sleeve - but all gestures are equally heart-felt and wouldn't be played if they didn't represent something true and real to the group. Likewise, Ghost leader and lead singer Masaki Batoh combines his native tongue with English in an eccentric manner that is in fact the only way that the lyrics could be expressed. The result, played by a sextet of Ghosts led by firebrand guitarist Michio Kurihara and multi-instrumentalist Giant, is an eruption of sounds, coalescing into pop and folk structures and then flying apart into jams, improvisations and extended-form workouts. This is the sound of Ghost - though the generally pastoral textures of their acclaimed last album Hypnotic Underworld have been displaced by a darker, electric texture on In Stormy Nights, underscored with the militant roar of tympani drums. The picture is at times, a bleak one - but with the ethereal book-end pieces, "Motherly Bluster" and "Grisalle," Ghost strike the hopeful chord for us all. In Stormy Nights is a record for today as well as a record for all the stormy nights this world has known.