Another great band reformed, but as always I approach these kind of things with a little trepidation, the last truly great music Girls Against Boys put out was around 17 years ago with the classic House Of GVSB, it’s follow-up was widely acknowledged as pretty awful. Then in 2002 we had a reformation of sorts with the decent ‘You Can’t Fight What You Can’t See’ which while being good, just wasn’t the band you knew and loved. So 17 years on can the band that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end pull it off again? Fuck yes they can.
First song ‘It’s a Diamond Life’ is a complete return to form and would have stood up alongside anything on Cruise Yourself or House Of GVSB, Scott McCloud’s vocals have never been better, and the band have lost none of their fuzzy laid back charm. ‘Fade Out’ is a rockier affair with menacing vocals that meld into a post-punkesque explosion of a chorus, with an amazing keyboard backing track.
’60 is Greater Than 15’ is eerily reminiscent at the start to the bands biggest tune ‘Kill The Sexplayer’ but thankfully without being a carbon-copy, they’ve almost taken their old blueprint and actually improved upon it with bigger hooks and chorus’s’ but while still keeping the edge that put them leaps and bounds ahead of all other bands of their day. Jumping literally into next track ‘Let’s Get Killed’ which may be the best thing on here and the best track they’ve ever done, so catchy and vicious in tone, The Ghost List is almost the logical next step they should have took in 1998, but 15 years later you hear the band get back to what they were always capable of.
Closing track ‘Kick’ sounds like what Nine Inch Nails should sound like now, all scowled vocals and beats mixed with hypnotic rhythms, except Scott’s vocals carry off the menace that Trent Reznor could only wish to convey these days, the only down side to this entire EP is that it is an EP and not a full-length, we can only hope that the future contains more music from GVSB because they’ve certainly got whatever they lost back.
10/10
Buy here: http://epitonic.bandcamp.com/album/the-ghost-list-ep
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