The style of music from the early 2000s that we all know and love has continued to flourish and grow over the years, however with some stark differences and changes as each new band and album has emerged. While these are all good in their own right, there is just something about the mall emo/screamo genre from that time period that just holds something special in our hearts.  Then sometimes in this sea of bands you come across a new band that encapsulates what you loved about music and that style back in the day. It is a rarity, finding that one band that  pulls it off so well and manages to sound so much like those bands yet something new, something unique and their own. What if I told you there was a band if you took 90% of Senses Fail’s ‘Let It Enfold You’, and then took bits and pieces of bands like Story Of The Year, Hawthorne Heights, and My Chemical Romance and blended them all together, yet managed to still sound fresh and new? You would get Your Ghost In Glass- ‘Drowning to Escape the Fire’.

Right from the start with the hauntingly, beautiful ‘Coming Up To Breathe’, a stellar intro track, you get a sense that this album is going to explode into something great. It proceeds to deliver upon each following track, never backing down and being true to itself. The guitar riffs of ‘ Dreaming In Black And White’ come soaring in the intro, and the band fires on all cylinders from this moment on. You instantly hear the influences of Senses Fail’s LIEY, everything from the guitars and drums to the vocals clean and unclean resonate with that sound and energy. ‘Drowning to Escape the Fire’ keeps this energy going through the entire album. The lyrics are also very reminiscent of this time period of music, with the next track ‘Believe In Me’ being a prime example of this. Soaring guitars, catchy hooks, and a chorus that will have you singing along long before the song is over. 

The production on this album does wonders for the listening experience. The vocal mix of the album is on point, with clean and unclean vocals intertwining and going back and forth with each other with a level of skill and prowess that is hard to come by in this genre. Instrumentally the production and mix are on point as well, with cool moments littered across the album such as the intro to one of the prerelease singles ‘Cellophane Veil’, with a distorted almost AM/FM radio sounding intro that explodes into crunchy guitar riffs and rapid fire drumming that is only heightened by the powerful unclean vocals that accompany them. The clean vocal the sections of this track are catchy and sound so good. This song shows off what this band excels at on so many levels, with every single element of the band firing off to create something truly wonderful. This is the type of song you would have loved to hear at a Warped Tour (or these days I suppose an Is For Lovers festival), and just jumped into the pit and screamed along with. 

This is not to say the album doesn’t have its softer moments as well. ‘Hospice’ is the slower song of the album, with haunting lyrics that breathe the song to life around the beautifully plucked guitar strumming structure. The song faces the subject of death and life reflection while at the end of your life, with lyrics like “I can see the other side, there is no heaven only fields of distant memories.” and “You say that you’re helping, you’re only hurting, you’re just keeping me alive, prolonging my suffering, ignoring my feelings, I think I’d rather die.” This song is such a powerful and emotional gut punch, and each track on this album has gem lyrics like this when you listen close. The subject of these songs can be quite dark, but the method they are delivered is both profound and extremely well done behind shredding guitars. ‘Heaven In Flames’, for example, sounds like Armor For Sleep straight off of ‘What To Do When You Are Dead’, with both the mental images painted by the lyrics and vocal deliveries. 

The album closes with the beautifully done ‘Drowning To Escape The Fire’, which begins so softly and delicately with haunting electronics and guitars, but as we hit the 3:00 mark of this 5:03 long song, it begins to ramp up vocally and instrumentally, until finally exploding in the last minute with unclean vocals, heavy drums and guitars, all wrapped together beautifully with church choir-like singing behind it all. Moments like these on this album are something precious, and YGIG pulls it off with such skill that is begs to be credited. Each aspect of this album as a whole is a firework display of musical prowess, and everything from instrumentation to the addictive sing along lyrics and vocals hit the mark for any fan of the early 2000s era. 

Your Ghost In Glass has captured something special on this album, something that my writing will just simply not give justice to the point where if you were a fan of the bands I compared them to above, I implore you to check out this album when it drops. There are a lot of bands that have branched off from our elder emos of old, but this is one that has truly captured that spirit and sound from back then but brought it into 2024. Every item on the check list of a fan of the warped tour era is met on this album is spades, from the moment the sound begins to play in your headphones to the moment when the album fades out from the final track. This is a high contender for my album of the year, and I cannot wait for everyone to hear it.

Rating: 9/10

Your Ghost In Glass- Drowning to Escape the Fire

Release Date: 5/17/24

Track List:

1. COMING UP TO BREATHE

2. DREAMING IN BLACK AND WHITE

3. BELIEVE IN ME

4. PISTOL IN A PULPIT

5. CELLOPHANE VEIL

6. HOSPICE

7. DANCING THROUGH THE HOSPITAL

8. HEAVEN IN FLAMES

9. PORCELAIN HEART

10. BLINDFOLDS AND EXIT SIGNS

11. DON’T LOOK AT THE SKY

12. DROWNING TO ESCAPE THE FIRE

Reviewed by Kevin Ott