STEAMPUNK MAGAZINE REVIEW
 
SEPTEMBER 2009

www.steampunkmagazine.com

Proudly flying the flag for British steampunk mu­sic, Ghostfire’s debut EP is a cracker. Next to Abney Park’s Romantic airship pirates, this group of Lon­doners is the silver-tongued opium storyteller and sideshow carouser.

The music is driven by the drums and bass gui­tar, with competent lead guitar showing touches of Iron Maiden and electric folk, and organ from a mid-sixties blues band. It sounds like it’s com­ing out a sweaty pub of ledger clerks and coal men drinking hard to escape their day’s toil in the crowded streets of Victorian London.

The lyrics imply a story without ever telling it, fol­lowing threads of what might be metaphor, might be mythology, or might be the free-association of the freakshow peddler as he stands in-front of his crowd.

The opening track, “Vaudevillian,” is a burlesque number which ties the heroine to the train tracks while twiddling its moustache. “Masters of the Sea” and “Ghostways of Paris” are full of that rhythm sec­tion, making a deep engine throb with lead guitar and organ highlights and lyrics which are both sin­ister and pleading. The closing track, “Barrio,” is a dark but charged wil o’ the wisp, promising enlight­enment if you stray from the path.

Unmistakably British and unmistakably steampunk, the only complaint one could raise would be the length of the EP: four tracks is enough to whet the appetite, but leaves you wanting so much more.