HARESS- ‘Ghosts’
The year isn’t even halfway through, but it seems impossible that a more aptly-titled album will be released in 2022. The second full-length by Shropshire based collective Haress is a collection of eerie ambience, distant whispers, and ominous drones. That doesn’t mean ‘Ghosts’ lacks staying power though- these are not your modern, ambiguous apparitions, these are powerful, possibly primordial spirits. This is a record that sounds like it’s been dug, perfectly preserved, out of a peat bog. ‘White Over’ starts like weird folk but layers looping, sliding guitars with subtle darkness to finish like frost-flecked post-rock, while ‘Time to Drink’ just straight up sounds like something Godspeed! You Black Emperor wrote before the turn of the century. Every time the album threatens to skew slightly twee some new fog rolls across the sound, something shifts in the background, and keeps things compelling. There’s a small chance that real ghosts made themselves known during the recording process here- unknown voices apparently emerged from detuned radios- but Haress have most definitely conjured up something genuine and made to last.
