On their debut full-length, Hold This Ghost, Musée Mécanique bring a high, soft breeze into their home.
Hailing from the wind-swept shores of San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, the band channels the beauty and loneliness of lost, empty houses. While sometimes the band can get too touching for their own good, Hold This Ghost holds up well.
Opener “Like Home” introduces Ghost on a high note, with its twinkle-wash flowing effortlessly. Moreover, it brings the listener to the grand, empty Victorian house where Musée Mécanique made Ghost. The whole record feels like an elegy to abandoned farmhouses and manors, sprawling and wistful. Some tracks employ a woodwind sound, such as “Two Friends Like Us” and “Somehow Bound”, while others use strings, like final numbers “Nothing Glorious” and “Our Changing Skins”. But the strongest pieces are where the band dips into alt-country, on the relaxed vibe & swing “Fits and Starts” and the finger-plucking twang-wonderful press, “Sleeping In Our Clothes”.
Unfortunately, sometimes Musée Mécanique can go overboard. “The Propellors” has a rather cheesy haunt to it. “The Things That I Know” is over-touching, while “Under Glass” is too choral. A little more of grounding in reality goes a long way, but Hold This Ghost wafts in a sweet sound.
On their debut full-length, Hold This Ghost, Musée Mécanique bring a high, soft breeze into their home.
Hailing from the wind-swept shores of San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, the band channels the beauty and loneliness of lost, empty houses. While sometimes the band can get too touching for their own good, Hold This Ghost holds up well.
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