South West England based Courting Ghosts impress with debut album.
Formed in 2023 in southwest England, Courting Ghosts are relative newcomers to the Americana scene, but their debut album ‘Falling My Friend’ immediately impresses with its songwriting, arrangements and production. Comprising Chris Hoar on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Marcel Rose on lead guitar, Dave Turner on keyboards Andy Maggs on bass and Dermot James on drums, the release opens with the title track, mid-tempo with acoustic guitar and keys at the fore, with a memorable chorus “You don’t want to know, where I go/ You don’t want to see inside my soul/ You don’t want to feel like you’re falling my friend/ Falling my friend.. again”, with heartfelt vocals from Hoar, and also featuring Dave Moss on fiddle.
“Creating this album has been a labour of love,” said lead singer Chris. “We wanted to try to catch the real essence of our live sound whilst also using the studio to augment it with additional instrumentation and musicians who wouldn’t normally be there with the amazing David Moss on fiddle and Holly Carter on pedal steel. We think the result is great and are so pleased with how it’s turned out. It’s been an incredible journey, and we cannot wait for everyone to hear it.”
The album’s mid-tempo numbers–all but three of its ten tracks–are consistently hooky, ‘Something Like’ a classic country rock composition, featuring a distinctive and melodic electric guitar riff prominent throughout, while ‘Tonight’, with a slightly slower tempo, starts with an acoustic guitar motif reminiscent of Morgan Wade’s ‘Wilder Days’.
Downtempo ‘I Close My Eyes’ has a gentle vibe, acoustic guitar with a reverb-heavy piano playing as a response to the vocal, rather in the style of Bob Andrews of Brinsley Schwarz and The Rumour fame, and Hoar joined on duet vocals by Lorna Somerville, something of a song for our times “And the world had spun to such a speed, politicians had lost their minds/ And the price of truth was never paid, so we were broke with the cost of lies/ I closed my eyes, carried away this time/ I closed my eyes, I thought we were doing fine”.
‘She’s Alright’ has even stronger echoes of Bob Andrew’s style, here on organ, after an intro featuring bass, then acoustic guitar, building to a big chorus, with pedal steel, “She took my life and dreamed, yeah she’s alright ”.
Continuing the downtempo vibe, ‘Waste Some Time’ in 6:8 time features a fine acoustic guitar instrumental, and closing track ‘They Don’t Care’ has some fine interplay between two acoustic guitars as the track builds, with more of a leaning to contemporary folk, coming to a rousing conclusion with a double time outro.
This is an excellent first album which places Courting Ghosts in the company of an increasingly strong home-grown Americana scene.
