The Ghouls Photo credit: Kira Emery
For a new band on the scene, buzz can be a four-letter word. Some bands chase hard after it, doing whatever it takes to get noticed and get ahead. Others allow it to find them, accepting a sudden wave of attention that can be as fleeting as it is overwhelming, hanging loud overhead like guitar distortion piercing out from a stage amp. So what’s a young band to do when the buzz not only greets them after releasing a debut single, but piles up in remarkable fashion after only unveiling two more?
Follow it all up by making the best motherfucking debut album possible.
That’s what The Ghouls are doing after a wild 2024. In May, the Lowell band won the esteemed Rock and Roll Rumble, the decades-old institution known as the “World Series of Boston Rock,” and come December scored Rock Artist of the Year at the Boston Music Awards, where they were also invited to perform live and nominated in the New Artist category. But this new album is no simple encore, nor a fight to live up to lofty, already-cast expectations.
This is The Ghouls just getting started, and the culmination of the buzz, the awards, and the sweat and the fury of one of the best live shows in town manifests itself at maximum volume through the indie and alt-rock quartet’s blistering debut album, Handle With Care, which The Big Takeover is premiering exclusively today ahead of its release this Friday, May 30. A week later, on June 6, they celebrate the record, the past year, and all the excesses along the way with the official release party at The Middle East in Cambridge.
And like the attention that found The Ghouls early on, it takes roughly three seconds for Handle With Care to reach a frenzied cruising altitude. Moments in, vocalist and guitarist George Danahy lets out a primal “Let’s go now!” scream on fiery opener “Pocket of Gold” as the band – guitarist Peter Trainor; bassist Jacob Babcock; and drummer Bryce Maher, who all recently met as students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell – comes together to unleash an unbridled fit of rock and roll fury.
“I hope this record is universal for the listener,” Danahy admits. “I hope it is an album they choose to listen to while working out, while driving, on amazing days, and on awful days. Handle With Care reflects how young our band is in the grand scheme of things, in a positive way. There are many wildly different sounding tracks on this record, yet all of them still sound like they come from us. It all still feels cohesive.”
With momentum at their backs and a reputation for an explosive live show permeating the Boston music scene, The Ghouls unveiled a pair of new singles in the fall, September’s high-octane indie belter “Pocket of Gold,” with its inspired callback to boozy early-00s garage rock from both sides of the Atlantic, and October’s jangly “Lovestruck,” showcasing the foursome’s penchant for hooky, punchy power-pop.
Anyone who has caught a Ghouls show over the past year or so is likely to recognize many of the songs on Handle With Care. But with studio polish and a guidance of vision from a host of veteran collaborators, as cited above, the tracks contained here reach a fever pitch.
“We’ve been playing these songs consistently for well over a year at this point,” Babcock adds. “I think most of the people who know us are pretty familiar with most of them, I’m just excited for people to familiarize themselves with and hopefully also be surprised by the finished product.”
It would be hard to be. Beyond the singles, the new tracks reach a spectrum of genres and styles: “Garfield” oozes the animated detached cool of the 2000s indie rock scene, threatening to fly off the rails at any moment without actually doing so; the expansive “For You” brings the tenacity down to a confessional draft; “Scopophobia” leans into post-punk territory with its moody, post-midnight gallop; and “Reach For The Sky” exudes a celestial, almost prog-like ambition; April single and album appetizer “Game,” combines the quiet/loud components through infectious melody; and album closer “Goodbye” resharpens the alt-indie guitar rock assault to drop an exclamation mark on this beast of a record.
“I feel like the whole album theme sums it up perfectly – Handle With Care,” says Danahy. “Many of the tracks are super high energy, like the artwork imagery with the grenade exploding, like ‘Pocket of Gold’, ‘Hellbound’, ‘Goodbye’… while others show some vulnerability, hence the ‘With Care’ – ‘Lovestruck’, ‘For You’, and ‘Garfield’.”
Ask the band about their personal highlights, and the replies are as varied as the animated sounds contained within.
“I think my favorite song on the record is the last one, ‘Goodbye’ – that was a perfect example of our producer, Sean McLaughlin, taking the initial intent of the song and cranking it to 11,” Danahy says, with Babcock adding: “I think the album version of ‘Hellbound’ does an incredible job of taking a song most people know and putting it in a new light. ‘Reach For The Sky’ is the song I contributed the most to so I certainly have some bias towards that one.”
Maher cites “Garfield” as a fave. “It’s awesome,” he says. “The little breakdown is fresh. I love the structure, and how the rhythm of the vocals sit so well on top of the track. It’s a fun listen.” And Trainor chimes in with his own picks: I love how ‘Game’ came out! That’s a song we tried to record a couple times, but I’m glad we saved it for the studio because Brian Charles worked his magic and it feels like that’s the way the song was supposed to sound. I also play synth on ‘Scopophobia’ so that’s pretty cool.”
So what comes next?
“I don’t even know what comes tomorrow!” Danahy says with a laugh. “We got a lot of songs that we feel strongly about already written, and some already being performed! I honestly hope to take advantage of every opportunity that we get and take this thing as far as we can.”
But for now, what stands firm is Handle With Care, The Ghouls’ debut album that was made exactly how the band wanted it – and needed it – to be made. It takes their live show and puts it on record, it filters a vast array of influences and desires and condenses it into one tight, comprehensive record that grabs the listener at “go!” and never loosens the grip. Just like the hand holding the grenade on the colorful artwork.
Buzz can be many different things to many different bands. But for The Ghouls, it’s just a thing that happened along the way to being the band they’ve always wanted to be.
“We always just sound like The Ghouls. It’s cool,” Maher concludes. “The diversity on this record, combined with the fact that we are a relatively new band, gives us the opportunity to tackle different styles again, or hone in on a specific sound in the future. I’m excited to see what comes after this album.”
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