Ghost Aquarium – “Light Cannot Escape” b/w “Spiritual Cramp” 7” (Ripping Records)
The sole release by Florida’s Ghost Aquarium made it to my PO Box by way of two closely-related things I haven’t done in ages: Purchased a record through an advertisement in MRR, and making that decision based on the description contained therein. In my late-teens, a single Dinosaur Jr namedrop was all it took to liberate cash from my tenuous finances, and I simply wanted to revisit this era of mail-order success and disappointment. Thankfully, “Light Cannot Escape” does what a song should do when a band anchors a sound with Eugene Mascis’ handiwork: It feels like early Dinosaur Jr. The way every part of the song – chorus, verse, intro, etc – serves as a stand-alone hook, and the quasi-metal chug of the guitars is, well, also a big hook … a band can either do this right or do it horribly wrong, and Ghost Aquarium do it so well that I would purchase their debut album (if one ever pops up), content unheard. I’ll even continue to overlook the “Ghost” part of their moniker. (http://www.myspace.com/rippingrecords)
(Andrew Earles)
