Narrows

Album review

It’s strange when it happens, but it’s always kind of comforting when a band’s name kind of perfectly describes their sound. Such is the case for electronic duo Warm Ghost on their full-length debut, Narrows. Layered with warm, fuzzy-around-the-edges beats and haunting, echoing synthesizers, the album envelopes the listener in its autumnal sound like a thick sweater, acting as both a source of heat and a constant reminder that just outside of its borders lies a cold, unforgiving world. This relationship between comfort and eeriness creates an interesting duality in the music as the listener is set adrift amongst the soothing pulse of the shuffling, electronic beats and the tense waves of keyboards, creating a paradoxically anxious state of calm. This kind of mood limbo is a state that Warm Ghost is able to maintain beautifully, adjusting things just enough between tracks that they stay engaging without ever jarring the listener out of their cocoon of atmosphere, while deftly splitting the difference between the passiveness of purely ambient music and the active intellectualization required to fully absorb the skittering glitches of IDM.
© Gregory Heaney /TiVo