Album Review: Tired Pony – The Ghost Of The Mountain
3 min read
Many bands and artists take a long time to get set into their genre and find their sound, but this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone. One example of a band who seem to have found their sound without being together all that long, are Tired Pony – featuring Gary Lightbody (of Snow Patrol fame).
Tired Pony, who have a distinctively alternative folk and rock style about them, have just realized their second album – The Ghost of the Mountain. This album, despite being only the band’s second release, has the sound of a group who are secure in their genre and have been playing together for a significant time. Many of the tracks are laced with beautiful folk harmonies, stunning guitar lines and some many lyrics that people can not only relate to, but genuinely enjoy.
The album opens up with I Don’t Want You As A Ghost – a lovely song that I’d struggle to fit into a genre that does it justice. This song has the ability to take all the energy out of you with it’s laid back groove, charming backing vocals and lyrics and minimalistic instrumental parts.
After another late summer days alternate folk song, I’m Begging You Not To Go, we reach the third track of the album – Blood. Blood keeps with the feeling that has been prevalent throughout the album so far, but places more emphasis on the drum beat and brings in some indie guitar stabs to accent the beat more heavily. As well as this accentuation on the beat, you find yourself falling in love with the lovely vocal lines and catchy chorus.
Among every album there is one song that stands out, and track number five is certainly that for The Ghost of the Mountain. All Things At Once, which was also released as a single, brings the quality of the alternate-folk-rock genre played on this album up a level. The track features a stunning opening, featuring perfectly mixed guitars and piano over an ambient background – immediately grabbing your attention and demanding you to pay all of your attention to this song. The song features simple raw vocals and guitar during the verse, but transitions into the chorus for some beautiful vocal harmonies and a sound that (despite little to no volume change) is nearly tear jerkingly powerful.
Not long after the spectacular All Things At Once there is a sudden genre change in the form of The Beginning of the End, which makes a move away from the folk feeling of the other tracks and instead brings us a significantly more rock based alternative song. The Beginning of the End replaces all of the acoustic guitars with electric ones, brings in a synthesizer and gives us a significant change in vocal style. However, despite this change, the track fits well into the album – giving us a temporary but refreshing change from the Folk which could have gotten cumbersome without this change.
Making another genre change, nine tracks into the album, we have Ravens And Wolves – an absolutely stunning and anthemic song with some beautiful lyrics, nothing but the best instrumental parts and some of the most significant changes between verses and choruses I might have ever heard.
The Ghost of the Mountain is the second to last track on the album, and doesn’t disappoint in the slightest as a title track, and sums up the album quite well. The track features a few folky acoustic guitar parts and vocal harmonies, but features a laid back rocky beat and a few strong alt-rock guitar lines.
All in all I would say that The Ghost of the Mountain is definitely worth listening to, and could easily appeal to people who don’t usually listen to albums and artists of this style – as for the people who usually do listen to this kind of music, it will suit them even more. Tired Pony succeed in bringing together a range of genres together smoothly in a way that is both musically satisfying as well as generally enjoyable.
Buy ‘Tied Pony – Ghost Of The Mountain’ from Amazon
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