The Ghost Inside (Explicit Content)

Arriving five years after the bands bus collided with a tractor-trailer while on tour outside of El Paso, Texas, metalcore heroes the Ghost Inside return with a potent 11-song set that injects the genres key trope of overcoming adversity with some considerable gravitas. After the crash, vocalist Jonathan Vigil, guitarist Zach Johnson, and drummer Andrew Tkaczyk were hospitalized in critical condition, with Tkaczyk eventually having to get his leg amputated, so its both invigorating and unsurprising when Vigil bellows TGI from the ashes, brought back to life just seconds into the brief but punishing 1333. The roaring gang vocals of Still Alive are buttressed by ringing melodic guitars and Tkaczyks rounded blastbeats, with Vigil spitting out life-affirming lyrics peppered with wounded defiance. For the most part, the remaining tracks follow suit, with trad-hardcore fist-pumpers like Pressure Point and One Choice and surging midtempo bruisers like Make or Break suggesting that the band have found some semblance of normalcy amidst all of the internal and external wreckage theyve endured since the release of Dear Youth way back in 2014. The closest thing to a sonic outlier would be the palatial, post-metal-influenced Unseen, which rolls in like a late-summer storm before unleashing a blackened torrent that evokes August Burns Red by way of Agalloch. The emotionally charged closer Aftermath treads similar sonic terrain but ultimately hews closer to the seismic crunch of the groups core sound, which despite having been put through the wringer, hasnt lost an iota of vitality. ~ James Christopher Monger