Review Summary: Excellent delivery of a fundamentally shitty genre
At this point in their careers the band members of The Ghost Inside should've faced a common dilemma, "how do you follow your best release?" this record was
Returners, a very above average work lyrically and musically. Where most bands fail in matching their best album with their follow-up, TGI basically did so,
Get What you Give is just as enjoyable & good. Any modern hardcore fan will be pleased as this act pretty much delivers everything he wished; great screams and shouts, heavy breakdowns, melodic sections, above average drumming, tight musicianship and even some clean vocals.
a) But is
Get What you Give a remarkable album?
b) Does it walks through the dirty roads of experimentation or it just carefully follows the safe- delivering path?
a) GWYG is a remarkable album, not for it’s originality (to be fair: NONE), but for it’s execution. Guitars are well placed, drumming fills excellently, great vocals are also there as well, bass… (I don’t know) and all of this is enchanced by a good production. To mention one song “This is What I know about Sacrifice” I don’t really care about how Jonathan Vigil shouts “Meet me at the crossroads” the song title aims at something else, double meaning… A transition from their melodic hardcore roots to a current slamming metalcore sound. This metalcore sound delivers completely, songs like “Engine 45” will captivate you with their catchy hooks and ironically pessimist lyrics, while other tracks “Dark Horse” & “White Light” will keep you begging for more thanks to their catchy choruses and deadweight heavy breakdowns. Of course this is a modern metalcore album so there are certain problems:
• The over usage of breakdowns on all of its songs.
• The production (however good) is not on par with
Returners mastering, the guitars are often too loud & the bass is nowhere to be found.
• A fair amount of filler songs that are sure to please metalcore tough boy-hooligans but don’t contribute anything good, at all.
• Sometimes the band seems to be just a mere rip-off of Stick To Your Guns & its relatives, and that doesn’t helps.
• Needs more avant-garde & some maudlin of the Well influence, Miles Davis and Godspeed as well.
The Ghost inside is the same band that wrote
Returners for sure, their stylistic approach might have changed now but the results are quite similar. Long gone can be the more hardcore-tinged drumming from
Returners, instead we are given a tight, heavy & great delivery that will leave an always fun, groovy taste in our mouths. That‘s just one example of how their instrumental approach has changed “But hey, if it’s not broken don’t fix it”. The Ghost inside are not looking for questions, they are paraphrasing answers & because the answers they copied are
good - the music itself turns out to be pretty good
b) even when this obviously is not a very original record, the goal was to deliver - and it does excellently. This band don't gave birth to any hardcore classic but if they continue playing so well, I don’t see any problems if they eventually get very close. Obviously The Ghost Inside are not unleashing
Jane Doe upon this world, this is
Get What you Give, and if you give this proper listens, not expecting much… Your reward will be one of the most enjoyable modern metalcore records.
Recommended Tracks
White Light
Dark Horse
Slipping Away
Engine 45
