Artist: Apollo Ghosts
Title: Landmark
Record Label: You’ve Changed Records
Rating: 6.0

Right now everything vintage or retro is hot property, from grainy Instagram taken snaps to the impulse of borrowing your Granddad’s cardigan, there is no doubt that relics of the past are the toast of the present. The same can be said about music, artists and fans alike seem to take solace in audio nuggets from a bygone era or at least aural documents that sound like they should be from back in the day.

Sounding like a band beamed in from the 60s, Apollo Ghosts fit the bill of an act that embrace the retro aesthetic to the letter. The Vancouver based trio carry a certain jingle-jangle to their rock n roll which makes them sound trapped in the past with no intention of leaping into the future. The three piece are due to release their third LP, Landmarks, which boasts 15 short tracks which unravel like undiscovered Super-8 reels and could easily soundtrack cult TV show The Wonder Years. With only a handful of tracks that push the three minute mark, Landmarks is a record that doesn’t stick around for long and because of this doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression. The majority of the tracks maintain a standard format of whimsical rock n roll which conjures up the image of the archetypal nerd from the 60s than the cool leather jacket wearing, flick knife carrying rebel you’d expect from rock n roll. Aside from the common thread of twee, Apollo Ghosts have the occasional flirtation with a more muscular direction in the brooding ‘Days Of Glory’ and the slightest hint of prog creeps into ‘For What They Do, They Do’. It’s when Apollo Ghosts drop the cutesy rock n roll and embrace rougher, darker tones do they sound less like a facsimile of everything that has come before them and more like a band attempting to carve out their own identity.

A lot like a sepia tinged photo found in a keep sake box this LP is pleasant to gaze upon for a short
period of time but it’s purely an exercise of pointless nostalgia.

Words and Thoughts of Adam Williams