Girl at the Rock Shows

I know that there are a couple of amazing shows happening throughout the Twin Cities tonight, but honestly, I just want a night in. I’m in the mood to just listen to some new music on my own terms and in my own space rather than at a show. Weird, I know, but let’s run with it and start the evening off right by checking out ‘Ghost in the Mountain,’ the new album from Portland, Oregon-based The Mighty Missoula.

The first few seconds of ‘A Thousand Faces’ washed over me like a spa day. The slight ambiance of this opening track, mixed with the lush layers of motion that come at you in subtle yet powerful waves, was just what I needed for my Wednesday night. It was calming, but it also energized me in an unspoken way, as if prepping me for a journey that I can only assume will be nothing short of epic.

You really start to hear and feel the uniqueness of The Mighty Missoula unfold as the album moves onto “Signals.” I’ll be honest, this is an instrumental act and, if you know me, I rely a lot on lyrics to give me material to write about, so I can already tell that this nearly seventy-minute long album is going to be a bit more difficult for me to write about than a standard rock album but the emotion that comes through throughout this second track (and surely the rest of the album) had me feeling all of the things. As certain instruments and patterns emerged and receded throughout this seven-and-a-half-minute song, I found different thoughts and phrases passing through my head. I’m not ready to let you see into my head just yet, but I loved that I was already feeling this so early on in this epic record.

Although the name of the third track on this album had me wondering if I would hear a descent into chaos, “Unsteady Vessel” remains ridiculously steady. Although I was wrong in my interpretation of the song title that way, something about this song title made me think of a ship on a vast open sea, and that’s the feeling I got from this song. Although steady, there’s definitely a dramatic ebb and flow throughout this track that makes you feel like you’re going through the swells of the ocean under a bright, full moon. You can see the water glisten in the moonlight and feel the immense depth of what’s under you. Again, this is just my interpretation of this track, and I’m sure, when you listen to it, you may get something completely different, but regardless of what you get out of it, it will surely be stunning and a setting that you don’t want to leave.

At three minutes and twenty seconds, “The Dreaming Tree” is one of the shorter songs on this album, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that this band hasn’t put their all into this track. They absolutely have, and this shorter song will surely hit you just as hard as some of the lengthier songs that preceded it while also prepping you for “Sage at the Summit.” Again, I let the song titles get the best of me; I loved how “The Dreaming Tree” felt like the bottom of a mountain, and “Sage at the Summit” felt like reaching the top. There’s a triumphant energy to this track that I found incredibly powerful yet not overwhelming. The slight echo of the drums makes you feel, again, an insane sense of depth, which to me, feels like looking down at the world from the steepest mountain.

The journey down this mountain was just as beautiful as the way up with “Touching New Ground.” This song starts off slow and almost militant, as if reluctant to leave the top of that mountain, but as you get closer to “Touching New Ground,” you get a nearly frantic energy that comes through in a giant swell of sound followed by this wall of sheet intensity that hits you like a ton of bricks. I’ll be honest, I’ve never climbed a mountain and probably never will, but if I ever did, these three songs would absolutely be the soundtrack to that climb because they work so perfectly to tell the story of the rise and fall of such a journey.

“Prelude” really cuts this album in half in a beautiful way. After the power that came with “Touching New Ground,” “Prelude” feels almost angelic but in an extraterrestrial kind of way. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still power in this song, but it takes a new form and an almost atmospheric turn. I already had the band Explosions in the Sky stuck in my head throughout the first few songs, but I honestly didn’t want to go there. This seventh song forced my hand. Although it’s definitely not a dead ringer to Explosions in the Sky, I feel like that’s a good comparison when it comes to this quick little break in the signature power that is The Mighty Missoula.

I often wonder how bands choose their title track for albums. How do they pick the one song title that says enough about the album to name the entire release after it? When it comes to this album, there’s no question in my mind as to why The Mighty Missoula chose this eighth song to be the title track. Honestly, it may not have even been a choice they actively made, but I felt that this song showcased all the fantastic sides of this band so perfectly. Throughout the six and a half minutes that “Ghost in the Mountain” lasts, you get it all. You get the lush tenderness that The Mighty Missoula can do so well, followed by moments of tension that build into a beautiful explosion of organic tones and tastes. This song is an epic journey in itself.

Do I have the attention span for a nine-minute and nineteen-second song right now by anyone other than The Mighty Missoule right now? Absolutely not,, but by the time I reached “Breath of Mazama,” I knew that skipping a single moment of this lengthy track was not an option, because every moment of every song from this band tells a story or gives you a word to the overall tale that is this album. For this song, I felt like there was a battle happening, and “Breath of Mazama” was just telling me how it all went down. From the calm beginning to the tense middle and then back to a calm ending, but only after a truly breathtaking breakthrough of a sound fortress (I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe it). I didn’t think I had the attention span for this song,, but when it was finally done, all I wanted was more of it,, and I I hated the fact that it wasn’t longer.

I needed a rest after the battle of “Breath of Mazama,” and “Echoes of Ashes” was just what I needed. This song feels and sounds like air. It’s beautiful and breathy, with an epic amount of space given to each note and beat while not feeling too slow or drawn out. At just two minutes and fifteen seconds, this is the shortest track on the album, but that’s all I needed. I just needed that slight wind down after “Breath of Mazama” and before “Horizons” and “Echoes of the Ashes” did the trick.

“Horizons” and “Clear Path,” the eleventh and twelfth songs on this album, respectively, seem to mark the beginning of a new journey. I wish I could expand a bit more on what I mean by that, but, honestly, “Echoes of Ashes” was just such a beautiful pause in the journey of this album that I feel like I could feel a whole new journey restart with the power that was laid out in “Horizons” and then seemed to grow through “Clear Path.” Don’t be fooled, though; this is an entirely different journey than the first one. Whereas I felt a true sense of direction through the first half of this album, I feel like by the time “Clear Path” was wrapping up, I lacked feeling an actual “Clear Path” and, instead, felt a bit drifted off to sea again like I had in “Unsteady Vessel.”

How do you end an album as epic as ‘Ghost in the Mountain ‘? With “A Thousand Pieces.” Instead of going out quietly, The Mighty Missoula puts up a fight with this final track. This final song is one of the more abrasive tracks on this album, and I loved the way that it seemed to be this band harshly whispering to me, “I dare you to go back to your normal life after listening to this journey. I freaking dare you.” The truth is, there is life before you listen to ‘Ghost in the Mountain’ from The Mighty Missoula, and then there’s life after, and, let me tell you, things are a bit brighter and definitely more beautiful on this side. Come join me!

Tl;dr: If you like atmospheric yet powerful instrumental bands like Explosions in the Sky, The Mighty Missoula is your new favorite band. If you need to escape reality, if only for just over an hour, ‘Ghost in the Mountain’ is your new favorite album. If you like music and want to feel something, anything– check out ‘Ghost in the Mountain’ by The Mighty Missoula. You can thank me later.

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