Review: Ghost Bath – Rose Thorn Necklace

May 2, 2025

634

The aftermath of the release of Deafheaven’s Sunbather was truly an interesting time, and it certainly heralded the coming of many bands that would explore that particular sound: atmospheric black metal mixed with post-rock, shoegaze and anything else bands would pick and choose. Like many trends, this had obvious pros and cons, as for every cool and interesting band, there was a deluge of trend hoppers and wave riders, and then we have Ghost Bath. This project has been going for almost as long as the aforementioned Deafheaven, and has had quite an interesting journey, to say the least. They started as an anonymous project that claimed to be from China for whatever reason, and by the release of their sophomore and most well known record Moonlover the jig was up, as frontman Dennis Mikula, aka Nameless revealed the project was indeed from the US (Minot, North Dakota to be precise) and expanded Ghost Bath into an actual performing band.

I wanted to quickly get over the band’s weird history because this is actually the first time I’ve actually sat down to listen to their music. I knew of the whole “pretending to be Chinese” bit, the frequent comparisons to Deafheaven and being one of those love or hate bands, but I never dug deeper until now. The band has come back with a new album titled Rose Thorn Necklace, released through Nuclear Blast Records, and so, with all that out of the way, what do I think of Ghost Bath?

Despite being familiar with the lore and going in expecting post-black metal or blackgaze, for which I was partially right, this record actually surprised me in a lot of ways. For one, this record is way more metallic and fast than even the last Deafheaven record was; it’s also way more depressive and dejected in tone too. As a matter of fact, this band sounds nothing like Deafheaven on this new album, and since I’ve still been listening to Lonely People With Power, the differences and deviations are way more obvious to me. The album opens with “Grotesque Display,” a somber instrumental piece composed of blaring synths followed by a solitary melancholic piano, so from the get-go the band lulls you into a sense of utter despair. What follows is the title track and this is where I felt as if the rug had been pulled from under my feet given my own preconceptions about this band. The opening of the track has a more gothic vibe than the usual shoegaze and post-rock influence of this style, which then violently morphs into pure depressive black metal, while maintaining the initial goth-tinged melodies.

The rest of the album, for the most part, follows this format of quiet and loud dynamics: either a strong, aggressive opening, or a more subdued and sorrowful intro, before a contrasting bridge section, all the while maintaining a very stark sense of melody and a perpetually dour and dejected mood. While I do think Ghost Bath’s style falls into the nebulous “post-black metal” label, and there are parts that do have a shoegaze influence, the various melodic tendencies and influences on the record have more in common with gothic rock and post-punk, particularly in how the synths are used for both textures and as melodic leads. They go beyond even the realms of black metal altogether; the song “Vodka Butterfly” in particular has what I can only describe as an electro breakdown, complete with a synthesized electronica beat and stabbing synths. Indeed, given how the project leans heavily into very depressive subject matter, and from what I understand, has always had a DSBM slant, it makes sense that the music has gothic overtones, and that significantly enhances the more metallic leanings. When the band locks in and delves into pure aggression, the focus is on the riffs being as hard-hitting as possible, while maintaining a very apparent melodicism that keeps the record in the realm of black metal.

Overall, this album and Ghost Bath as a whole surprised me; I genuinely didn’t expect a post-black metal record to completely break away from shoegaze and take a wild detour into gothic and electronic directions while simultaneously experimenting with those aforementioned genre detours and a relentlessly depressive mood. On those grounds this record gets a recommendation for me, though for as eclectic as the record gets, I also felt a bit overwhelmed and tired by the end, and not because of the album’s themes and atmosphere. The music is genuinely impressive but at some points I felt that so much was happening all at once, especially during the middle section of the album, and while this may be a personal hang up, considering the compact song lengths and how the songwriting and arrangements are done in a way where the music doesn’t overstay its welcome, that feeling of being overwhelmed is kinda intensified. A good and different record, but one that I may need to acclimate to in the near future.