- Courtesy Ghastly Menace
- Ghastly Menace
Ghastly Menace has tripled. Four years ago, the band was just Andy Schroeder and Chris Geick, two former posthardcore musicians that got together to play pop. Now, the psychedelic outfit has six members. A rotating cast of characters simmered down to a steady lineup during the recording of the band’s debut album, Songs of Ghastly Menace, which came out on Tuesday via The Record Machine.
Songs has some of the same coppery hues that appear on A Lull’s records, though it’s less beat-based and more traditionally “pop.” Ghastly Menace loves harmonies and hooks; loves guitars that sound pulled from the golden age of radio; loves big, steady, solid drum parts. The songs are Schroeder’s, at least at first, but part of his journey toward making the album was learning to let go of a certain degree of perfectionism and free up the music to group input.
Part of getting there was just easing up on control. “If I sat here and tried to control what every single person was playing, it wouldn’t be very productive,” says Schroeder. “In doing the record, we found a groove as a band. We’d been playing together, but I wouldn’t say that we had necessarily fully locked in. I think in doing this, we found more of our roles and our places. Now we can work together a little bit better.”
