I'll be making two responses to this thread. This first one contains my initial reaction to the album just after listening to it for the first time, while the second post I'll make will be my thoughts on the album since I've properly let the album sink in.
And since I and others on the forum like to talk about their life story leading up to listening to whatever project of the week is, I guess I should start off that way as well. I've got to come clean about this... I got The Ghost of Hope early. About two weeks before official release. Now, to be fair, I did buy it off store shelves, and I didn't leak it online or spoil any details about it that weren't already known. When I was in Japan last month, I stopped by Tower Records in Shibuya. Not too far from where The Residents ended up playing their In Between Dreams show in Japan. They probably saw that building on their way to the venue, or maybe just where they were staying. Anyway, right in their Residents section was The Ghost of Hope... there were actually two copies sitting there. I picked one up and stared at it in disbelief. When I went up to the register to check out, I thought that maybe the man at the register would tell me that I wasn't able to buy the album. But of course, it was on store shelves, so I paid for the album and walked out of there.
I went straight back to the airbnb I was staying at and, after a few reality checks to see if The Ghost of Hope really wasn't out yet, immediately began listening to it. And then afterwards I began writing up a review. Here it is:
The Ghost of Hope definitely sounds different from any other Residents project so far… although that’s a good way to describe literally any of their other albums. I do feel like their sound for the past 5 or so years seemed a bit… stale, at least for The Residents. This album definitely has a new sound to it, which is pretty reassuring for me. I was afraid that maybe The Residents would just be stuck with their post-Bunny Boy sound for the rest of their existence.
Part of this change may have something to do with “Charles Bobuck”’s departure from the group, but I’ve heard that Bobuck still left his fingerprints all over the production of this project. I think it’s more just because this is a new project, with new collaborators, new moods to portray, and new ideas to reflect. Of course it has a different sound.
And yet, this album still sounds like this strange amalgamation of all their previous works. It reminds me of Freak Show. It reminds me of The Gingerbread Man. It reminds me of The Talking Light and Shadowland. It reminds me of The Voice of Midnight, and Tweedles, and God in Three Persons, Eskimo, and even The Big Bubble for some reason. It has this very familiar sound and yet it’s all mixed together in this particular ratio that makes everything sound fresh and new. It really made me think, “My god… I really am listening to new Residents!”
The sounds of this album are truly incredible. The Residents have constructed “soundscapes” in the past with things like Eskimo, but they truly master it in The Ghost of Hope. The scenes they create are amazing, and for all the chaos and grimness they portray, they are strangely a delight on the ears. The album veers on and off the tracks between portraying more “soundscape” like music and well, actual honest-to-god music. I was kind of feeling bad for wanting to tap my foot and bob my head up and down to such carnage. There’s also some Talking Light style first-person narration going on in this album, but it doesn’t make it this album’s gimmick. It’s actually interesting how every song is done at least slightly differently so the only true thing tying them together is the central theme of train wrecks.
And even for being about something as macabre as train wrecks and having the spooky name The Ghost of Hope, the album still managed to surprise me with how dark it was. It’s pretty gloomy and depressing, and the fact that songs are based on actual (Real?) events that happened just makes it all the more emotional. It’s a very haunting album and listening to it reminded me of listening to the depressing stories of The Gingerbread Man for the first time.
Now then, time to pretend like I’m Grandpa Gio for a second. The eyeballs are back, and prominently displayed on the album art for the first time on a major album release since Demons Dance Alone, I think? This means a few things. First off, The Residents are acting as observers, which is pretty clear from the concept of the album as well as the pictures in the booklet showing the eyeball-headed Residents calmly, almost playfully observing these train wrecks. But it also means that we’re dealing with commentary on our culture as well.
The railroad is so romantic and idealistic, but these disasters show another side of these ideals. These trains were technological marvels at the time, but we failed to control this technology properly. The Residents are asking “But have we learned from our mistakes?” when it comes to all these newer technologies we’re developing… which is part of what makes this album so haunting.
One final thing to note about the eyeballs is that it means that the “Randy, Chuck, and Bob” idea seems to be gone… at least to a certain extent. This seems to be emphasized by the “Real? Residents” brand that is present on the back of the cover, as well as all over the insides of the booklet. At first I thought it might just be a small little brand that would be placed on the cover as a joke, but its prominence on the inside covers is pretty intriguing. I don’t really know what it means just yet… I think we might have to wait for the In Between Dreams shows or maybe just hindsight a year or two down the road to really see what’s so “Real?” about them.
Anyway, this album is pretty great. Go preorder it… it is simply fantastic and I’m very happy to own it right now.
( Is this a bad album? The Ghost of Hope says NO! )
It was definitely fun riding a train basically directly after listening to that album. That didn't freak me out at all. Anyway, I'll be posting my new impressions on the album later. Knowing how Project of the Week goes, probably at the last possible moment.
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