Pet Ghost Project - Cheer Up It’s Raining
When it comes to DIY albums, I’ll be the first to admit, I almost always don’t like them. Being somewhat of an audiofile, I like my albums sounding polished and squeaky clean with production value up the wazoo. Which is kind of ironic considering my future album, whenever that gets around to being recorded, will be super DIY and won’t be too polished or professional sounding at all I imagine. So, I’ll soon be a big hipocrite in that fashion. But every now and then, a band comes along that I get to ignore my DIY pet peeves since it’s simply too good to ignore. Pet Ghost Project, the monniker of solo “music imagineer” Justin Stivers as his site describes, is exactly that kind of music.
His latest effort, Cheer Up It’s Raining, is a hodgepodge of genres that jump from 90’s shoegaze, Pinback, a little Smashing Pumpkins, older Radiohead and Modest Mouse, and even a little Animal Collective thrown in the mix. It’s impossible to describe really, and won’t be everyone’s schtick, but I’m enjoying it, and since it’s the blog of good ‘ol me, I feel like giving Justin some facetime.
The opener, “Celebrate Youth (Over and Over), is a nice instrumental opener that could fit on any of Rogue Wave’s newer albums. The next few songs are big, loud, and full of all sorts of fuzz. It’s with “Age of Automatics” that my head really turned though. The verses and main guitar riff are Pinback all the way, then it builds up to some screaming that had me thinking of old Modest Mouse, and while old Modest Mouse isn’t too much my style, it works well in this song. Definitely the stand-out on this album for me. “Mexican Apartment” sounds kind of like Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin had they been making music back in the 90’s alternative days.
“Soaked” is another downtempo number that I really enjoy and reminds me a lot of the band Self, if anyone remembers that band, which is also a one band if I remember right oddly enough. Man, I haven’t thought of that band in forever. Make a mental note to check out Self. I’m sure you’ll enjoy that band. Back to this album though. “Soaked” is followed by “Violent Dreams”, which repeats the line “In my dreams I’m fighting all the time” and builds from the single voice of Justin’s to a full chorus of people singing the line. It’s such a simple song, but one that stands out none the less. “Another” ends out the album with one of the cooler guitar solos on the album and more grandious fuzz, which seems appropriate since that fuzz dominates the album.
Like I mentioned before, the DIY sound, along with the big fuzz-filled guitar lines may not be your style, but I imagine some of you reading this will find it growing on you like it did me. Even if you don’t initially find anything you like here, Justin’s got the album up on his site as a free download. Oh, I forgot to mention that very important factor? Yeah, that’s right. So, you really have no reason not to head over to his site and at least stream it. Check out the songs I’ve highlighted below, then head over to Pet Ghost Project website and listen to the rest of the album. It’s one of the few DIY albums I’ve truly enjoyed in a long time, and that’s saying a lot when it comes from me. Here’s props from the Perch Justin on a great album and I look forward to hearing what you come up with next.
Pet Ghost Project
Cheer Up It’s Raining
Perch Score: 7.699
Celebrate Youth (Over and Over) [mp3]
Age of Automatics [mp3]
Mexican Apartment [mp3]
Violent Dreams [mp3]
