Origin:	Minot, North Dakota, USA
Genres:	Black Metal, Alternative Metal

Page online:	July 17, 2021
Last update/review:	November 27, 2021

Ghost Bath

The Ghost Bath tale has been extensively written in the metal underground, but here's a refresher course. Somewhere between the band's first and second releases, their status rose from nobodies to serious post-black contenders (with plenty of divisive opinions on just how good they were), and at least some of the buzz was attributed to the band claiming to be from China (or at least they went along with the story), only later to be outed as hailing from North Dakota. Their style (mixing black metal, post-metal, and shoegaze) was heavily compared to Deafheaven, both in complimentary terms as well as being accused of plagiarists. And then there's the vocals -- distant, random-ish, and in fact wordless, just shrieking. Finally, there's the inevitable curiosity/backlash that often seems to accompany bands whose membership is anonymous (even as of this writing, it's not entirely clear who originally was in the band apart from the vocalist). To the band's credit, there's a clear maturation between the 2014 Funeral debut and 2017's Starmourner as the Deafheaven vibes are somewhat lessened. This may be a band whose underground buzz may actually end up a hindrance (Myrkur can relate), as album reviews continue to be all over the map. The so-called blackgaze style may or may not have already run its course, and thus it will be interesting to see where Ghost Bath goes from here.