Love of Everything - Ghosts
Record Label: Minder Binder
Release Date: April 24, 2009
Creating music with your partner may seem like one of the most romantic things life can offer. Yet as John Lennon and Yoko Ono showed, it is no guarantee for good music. Luckily, the arrival of Elisse La Roche in his life has meant only good to Love Of Everything frontman Bobby Burg. After their instant marriage, the frontman came up with their fourth official full-length album: Ghosts.
Love Of Everything has seen a very different formation during the ten years of making music, but this one seems to be one for the long run. So, this must foretell the band´s musical course. Where does it take us?
Burg decided to stick with his formula of serious lyrics, accompanied by sweet, nearly childlike melodies – often played on guitar, almost cheesy keyboards, and mandolins – hereby creating an attractive and experimental indie-folk-ish sound. Even though Burg is just by himself, the fashionable artist manages to create the sound and arrangements of a full band (assisted live by his newlywed). As their live performances demonstrate, the looping of riffs and melodies greatly determines the sound of the band.
Ghosts – a collection of songs from the earlier and somewhat longer LP Ghosts & Friends - starts in high spirits as "Birds, Ice Cream and Whales" comes floating in. Just like the somewhat experimental character of his music, Burg’s high-pitched voice takes some getting used to, but just when you think that he is in danger of singing out of tune, the sounds soothingly smooth into each other.
The band hit some darker tones, as "Safety First" kicks in. The weighty bass intro, accompanied by a high, floating guitar riff, recollects memories of Pixies´ top chart hit "Where Is My Mind". The haunting song marks the more grave intermission on what is, on average, a fresh sounding album.
The successful experimental face of the band is best represented by cover "Fogbow", in which Burg makes his Joan Of Arc influence evident (the song are written by Burg’s close friend, Tim Kinsella, who wrote the song for his band Joan Of Arc). Identifiable looped voice samples hold the song together and it is obvious what musical direction Love Of Everything is heading for.
Still, it is those petite songs that stick in your head. For instance: the charming "I Love All You Guys (Slow)". As Burg sings "Think what I have to do to not mess up your life/Kicked in the head gone outside/I miss you/I miss all you guys", it really makes you wonder what it is he has done wrong. The enchanting tiny song "Cowboys, Hats & Jeans" illustrates Burg’s quality to write beautiful melodies. This is what Love Of Everything does best – is it marriage that makes him do this? If so, Ghosts makes all of us hope that marriage is ‘for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part’.
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