Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 02/21/2006
To a certain extent,
the Handsome Family,
Violent Femmes, and
Nick Cave have all wandered in the direction that Denver-based quintet
Ghost Buffalo takes on their debut album, but these guys go all the way with it:
Ghost Buffalo is, fundamentally, a blending of
goth rock and
alt-country. There's a definite twang both in the guitars and in
Marie Litton's vocals, but the overall mood of this album is brooding and dark, with prominent bass and echoey reverb predominating. Overall, the combination works, although that's primarily due to the appeal of
Litton's delicate, yearning vocals and the three-guitar attack of
Litton,
Matt Bellinger, and
Josh Coyle, which veers between
Crazy Horse-style walls of feedback and gentler sounds. The songs themselves tend to blur into one another across the course of the album, with a preponderance of samey
ballads; on their own merits, it's hard to fault songs as spookily engrossing as
"Hell Here" and
"Bones," but too many of them sound simply too much alike.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide