Ghost Light - The Healing (2022)

The sophomore release from Ghost Light finds the Philadelphia collective mixing synths, rock guitars, and male/female vocals that lyrically focus on the aftermath of pain. The Healing can be unsettling, beautiful, clunky, overblown, and fantastic at different points, just like real-life reconciliation.

The quartet of Tom Hamilton on lead guitar and vocals, Raina Mullen on lead vocals and guitar, Holly Bowling on keys, Taylor Shell on bass, and Scotty Zwang on drums, craft eight long-running songs that weave through different emotions.

Opening with strums, the title track uses falsetto singing around fuzzy guitars and lyrics that deal with mental health issues directly. The percussion and dizzying guitar solo also make this one of the better efforts here. The group digs into their Fleetwood Mac love multiple times on the album but never more directly than on “Faces In The Moon” which contains nuanced drumming and laser-like synths.

The lynchpin and soaring winner on the album, “Take Some Time” is the best song the band has delivered in their career. A great groove, rhythm guitar strums, strong vocals, and a pulsing get-up vibe kicks things off while a building chorus energizes. The track continues to gain steam with synth fills and distorted guitar flashes before climbing to the heavens then cooling down with an outro jam displaying swelling energy around layered sounds in weepy/joyful juxtaposition as guitar notes blaze forth; one of the most invigorating original tunes this scene has produced in years.

Less successful is the overblown in theatrical fashion “Up Here Forever” which would fit in a Meatloaf setlist, while the instrumental “Opening Credits” uses an understated opening, but still goes for Broadway-like crescendos to end. The album shifts into an unsettling stage of the healing as the warbling bass and ominous lyrics/tone casts a shadow on “Sweet Unlimited” while metal guitar riffs and twinkling piano make “Dig A Hole” a shifting uncertain journey, complete with mid-song chaos breakdown. The album ends on an upbeat note, led by Shell’s hypnotic bass line throughout “Don’t Say Goodnight Just Yet” offering neon hope through the darkness.

‘The Healing is rarely a straight line and Ghost Light has tried to embody that reassembling process which the whole world is currently struggling with on macro and micro levels.