Track By Tracks: Ghost Hollow - Ghost Hollow (2023)

1. Crown of Writhing Worms:

This track starts with a riff I wrote when I was messing around with a new Iron Horse pedal I had just traded an old pickup for. We jammed on that riff and made a few iterations which eventually devolved into the slow middle section. The lead before the slowdown was Mason, our drummer's idea. Sometimes he’ll describe what he thinks the next section should be and I try to turn his words into riffs. This is the first song where we really hit that blackened sludge sound. I wrote the lyrics during an ice storm when I was feeling particularly lonely and isolated from my loved ones.

2. Bathed in Regret:

We wrote the first half of this song together during rehearsal. I wrote the middle melodic section and a bit of the ending. We hammered out the ending together. I wrote the lyrics when I was reflecting on how I have treated people in my life hoping I’ve been a positive force rather than negative.

3. Affix:

This is the oldest song on our album. I was just noodling around and started playing the first riff and Carter, our bass player, asked if it was a riff off the new Kolwoon Walled City album. Fortunately, it was not and we wrote the rest that day. I find this one really fun to play live. The lyrics are about relationships changing and ending as life changes you.

4. Lead to Gold:

I wrote the first half of this song at home and brought it to the guys the next time we had rehearsal. We didn’t really know where to go with it and I started playing the odd-timed pyramid rhythm riff while we were talking about it (I am noticing a lot of stuff we write starts with us just mindlessly playing stuff). The rest of the song fell into place after we got that part down. I wrote the lyrics while observing my mood change with the seasons.

5. Naked and Craven:

This song starts with one of those riffs you hear in your head first then try to figure out how to actually play it later. We had a lot of fun figuring out the play between the bass and guitar parts on this one. Sometimes I hear something particular I want the bass to be doing but most of the time Carter comes up with something after we go through it a couple of times and it just clicks. The lyrics are about self-improvement and how vulnerable working on yourself makes you feel.

6. To Destroy Life:

I wrote all the guitar riffs at home on this one. I brought it to Mason and Carter and they quickly figured out what they wanted to do and tweaked what I had in mind. They’re both great at that. I had actually written most of the lyrics for another song that we never played live and decided it wasn’t really the sound we were going for. I actually mourned the loss of the lyrics to Carter one day and he was like “Just use it in another song”. So I did.

7. Bottom Feeder:

Carter wrote the first riff to this track and showed us one rehearsal. We wrote the rest of the song that day. It is a lot more straightforward and focused than the other tracks. This is always a fun one live. The lyrics are also more straightforward than the other tracks. Usually, I use a lot of metaphors but I thought this track needed something more aggressive and less poetic.

8. Honor in Suffering:

I wrote the first riff on this track then we finished the song together over a couple of rehearsals. This is another one where we had a fun time working on the bass and guitar relationship. Mason also had a lot of room to try different things on drums. The lyrics are about how sometimes you get so used to feeling bad you start to almost enjoy it in a perverse way.