Nihilistic, sardonic and world-weary… electric, psych-intoxicated Americana that’s bloodshot-eyed, wounded and dangerous.
‘Welcome to the Civilized World’, the cynically titled fourth album by GHOSTWOMAN, is a record beaten into shape by the unrelenting cruelties of life; knocked down countless times, yet staggering defiantly with a crooked smile, daring anyone who will meet its gaze to take one step closer. From the impulsive manner of recording that bears its flaws like proud scars, to its often-ferocious cacophonous sound and biting vocal delivery, it is an overall visceral listening experience.
The record begins with an unsettling, sparse piano intro, the descending keys evoking a film scene in which the chilling aftermath of some morbid event is slowly surveyed, or a moment of creeping, dread-inducing suspicion that something is very wrong. It feels like the sonic prologue of the album, a realisation that maybe there never was any greater meaning to anything, and it won’t necessarily all be okay in the end. After the last chilling note rings out, the guitars and drums crash in, and the formidable duo (Evan Uschenko and Ille van Dessel) commence with a statement of intent, recklessly flooring it towards oblivion… and you’re trapped in the back seat.
Amongst the first words delivered by Uschenko on the title track, he cries the following, like a frenzied street preacher and prophet of doom: “…and you’re all going to Hell, you know why? Because no one gives a fuck about anyone but themselves!”, a one-line sentiment that succinctly takes aim at the root cause of the bleak general state of the world. His subsequent crazed and feverish declarations are near unintelligible over the thundering engine of the song as it powers onwards.
If the opener is the sound of barrelling down a highway to nowhere whilst screaming into the wind, “Alive” would be the soundtrack of a much more subdued detour. It plays out like passing through the town you once lived in, a nostalgic and melancholic ride though the familiar, punctuated by inevitable aching reminders that people and places you thought would always be there no longer remain. The lyrics here (and throughout the album) dwell existentially on the ephemerality of the lives of those around us, and of course our own; “Just writhe, in time until my own goodbye”, laments Uschenko. It’s the sentimental yet blackened heart that beats at the core of an album marked by futility and loss.
“Song for Sunny”, with van Dessel’s insistent beat and Uschenko’s guitars radiating like a punishing desert heat, takes you cruising under vast twilight skies, with a sense of something vitally important urging you forwards. The closing lyrics to the song, “Good night my friend, goodbye, you close your eyes while we go on”, speaks poignantly to the complicated experience of finding a way to push on in the wake of losing someone.
The track “Anhedonia” is a standout, a slow-burning nocturnal blues trip which feels like the ghost of Hendrix has taken the wheel, as passing neon lights melt across the windshield. It’s a song that effortlessly conjures a smoky atmosphere, and one you’ll no doubt wish was as endless as the night drive you envisage. Instrumentally, it’s a smooth antidote to the mostly distorted guitars that blaze across much of the album, with static and fuzz like severed powerlines.
The album veers in tone from raging against the senselessness of it all, with tracks like “5 Gold Pieces” and “Levon” seething full of fire and venom, to sinking into the hopelessness on cuts like “Alive” and “Dime A Dozen”. It will undoubtedly strike a chord with the more existentially and pessimistically inclined listeners, though possibly also just with anyone in possession of a pocket-sized window to 24/7 Hell (and, incidentally, said articles are banished from the upcoming album tour shows, per GHOSTWOMAN’s request).
“Catch you blink then watch 10 years gone” observes the jaded narrator of “From Now On”, and in the case of the album, blink and 38 minutes are gone- ultimately silenced with the ejection of a tape. It burns briefly, but brightly. If there’s a takeaway or lesson from the album, it might be in the line “Life is but a dream, hold too tight and lose your handle”; the ride is short, everything and everyone will pass, embrace the absurdity. Meaninglessness can be its own motivation to drive on.
GHOSTWOMAN: Welcome to the Civilized World – Out 5 September 2025 (Full Time Hobby)
