Crooked Ghost ‘Skeleton House’ Review, North Carolinians conjure vintage 80’s goth on sophomore release. 

If you didn’t know better, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Skeleton House, the sophomore album from Crooked Ghost, was an obscure undiscovered gem released in the early 80’s by a bunch of black clad Brits.

You’d be wrong, however, because the group hail from Asheville, NC, and Skeleton House isn’t due for release until February 15 (via Palomino Records).

The album is drenched in dark atmospherics, as evidenced by kickoff track Body in Stars, with a droning, hypnotic bassline and echoing guitar lines that recall The Cure at their bleakest, while Roadkill is a haunting track about a serial killer, propelled by thudding drums and a ramshackle finale.

Elsewhere, the group explore a variety of other sonic textures: from rockabilly (Sleepwalker, the Twin Peaks’ish Black Cat), dusty goth rock (Witch Heart) and the daunting, discordant death rock of Only Nightmares, whose dark angular sonics and histrionic vocals are as unsettling as its title, while the self-titled closing track is a gorgeous slab of dark melodrama.

Frontman Ray Clark’s unique, quivering vocals sound like a hybrid of Placebo’s Brian Molko and Erasure’s Andy Bell, and the group’s dense, interweaving soundscapes recall classic post-punk and New Wave acts like The Smith’s, Echo and The Bunnymen and The Ocean Blue, but they reshape and channel their influences into a unique sonic stew that is unmistakably their own.

For those seeking new variations on a gloomy, goth tune, they make for a deep, dark, immersive dive.