Mostly Ghosts materialized in 2024, fittingly unveiling its existence as a band on Halloween. The post-hardcore quartet makes soul-baring, scratchy guitar-based music that was the purview of Myspace profiles in 2005. The stakes feel real, and the amplifiers are cranked up loud.
But unlike Gen Z takes on this sound, neither nostalgia nor ironic inversion plague Mostly Ghost’s debut EP, “Muscle Memory.” Instead, the band plays it straight, informed by Paramore and Saosin as much as their forebears Thursday and At the Drive-In. This results in a charming, expertly executed genre exercise with plenty of energy.
The band’s key strength is the juxtaposition of light and dark at play between the wall of noise and the voice of singer Laura Wolanin, known for her visual art with Praise the Sun Shop. With Matt Mallet on guitar, the melodies spider out in multiple directions, gathering power from the dense rhythm section of bassist Jeff Ciotti and drummer Steve Stoner.
A reckoning with nostalgia, or its presence as an unwelcome guest, arrives via Wolanin’s crisp delivery on opener “Close Call.” Here we are again like we’re 17 / Never take me back, she sings. Patient screamo fans get their moment when the skramz hit at the top of closer “Disposable Things.”
Elsewhere, the songs follow a time-honored, successful formula: the tension builds during the verses, breaking during a triumphant or hopeful chorus. Let the next time hurt a little less, goes Wolanin on “Timeline,” and then: I did not sign up for this.
The sense of loss that permeates the five songs (and one interlude) is made extra potent by the news that they are, in fact, the only music Mostly Ghosts will make. The band announced its split, due to different creative vision, in July when the EP arrived.
That makes “Muscle Memory” something of a ghost, too.
Patrick Hosken is CITY’s arts reporter. He can be reached at patrick@rochester-citynews.com.
