SONG REVIEW: Ghastly Town - "The Others"

“Ghastly Town IS BACK! And this time, they brought The Others” 

by Jesse Smith

All the way from Portugal, the boys in Ghastly Town have struck again with their new single “The Others” and this is 5 minutes of pop punk heaven. We have had Ghastly Town before on GKE and the one thing that still holds true and stands out is the work and effort this band goes through each and every release. The passion in every single song from the love of the music to the full stories each song tells and even all of the visuals this band puts in, they are one of the hardest working bands I think I have ever seen. Following the theatrical footsteps of the kings in MCR, Ghastly Town has its own unique and murderous identity in the scene. They have been releasing music since 2016 and somehow they are still topping every single release with the last. Not being confined in the genre box, the band has consistently showed off all of their musical influences seamlessly and can genre-morph into whoever they want to be! This song in particular has a straightforward traditional Pop Punk vibe and sound but with a Ghastly Twist. 

So starting off, for any of my fellow neurodivergent people out there heads up again, this song is 5 minutes long. Now before you give the “ick” face, Ghastly Town has a way of narrating their stories within the song that makes it easy to play a movie inside your head while listening to the track. The band has a way to have a high energy from start to finish while some of the longer songs have peaks and valleys, The Others is like being on a rollercoaster that is just twists and turns at high speed. I have reviewed this band’s work before and I was shocked at first to hear such a pop punk sound come from them, but not in a bad way, more as in a pleasantly surprised way like when you find an onion ring in your french fries. Even while giving me pop punk sunshine, Ghastly Town still put the spooky undertones in the song that made it uniquely theirs. The song starts and ends with an acoustic guitar and a soulful singer. Vocalist Tiago “Ashes” Pereira has such a distinct voice that you immediately know it’s him and has a very musical theater delivery, for example the melody of the chorus has some vocal runs that 100% fit the vibe of the song and is very reminiscent to again MCR that give that theatrical vibe. The thing that caught my attention was the amazing guitar work in this song. In key points of the song they let loose a little bit and gave us some prog licks as well as a guitar solo! Throughout the whole song the vocals and lead guitar played off one another and was the gasoline to the fire that is this single. Before you know it, your 5 minutes turns to 10 minutes because you replayed the song again. 

The release of this single marks the release of their debut album “Poisoned Teens & Scandalous Dreams”   which is a sick title. The band has released heater after heater and I think it’s time to bring forward the collection of the stories. If you are into storytelling and concepts, Ghastly Town will blow you away.