Ghostlimb - Infrastructure
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Infrastructure (Vitriol, 2011) is the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold. There’s a tough exterior comprised of anger at the world, and short bursts of energy indicating this is all business. Get in, get out, and leave the cash on the dresser – or the merch table.
But dig a little deeper and you’ll find the truth: fragility, intellect, compassion, the basic components of humanity. The character might not reflect reality, but hardcore does.
Building on 2008’s excellent Bearing & Distance (review), Ghostlimb continues to be a wrecking ball with vision. Hardcore staples – go-for-broke riffing, raging vocals, breakdowns – are turned on their head with slower melodic passages. It’s nice to hear individual notes ring out amongst the power chords.
“Construction” and “Asphalt” are informed by equal parts Black Flag and the Descendents, wearing hearts on sleeves whilst throwing elbows. The relatively epic “Eight” morphs into a Baroness-type outro, intricate drum fills matched to deliberate chord phrasings. Purists may call foul, but Ghostlimb doesn’t cater to those who would make such an arbitrary distinction.
Post-hardcore (post-anything, really) is a term that has always baffled me, and it’s the tag I see most often associated with Ghostlimb. “Post” means “after”, but to these ears Infrastructure is hardcore in any tense. The aesthetics, the message, and the music transcend categorization. Why judge a band by anything else?
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FULL ALBUM STREAM & PURCHASE
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