Back in February I wrote that David Wingo’s Ola Podrida had announced a new album – Ghosts Go Blind.I was pretty excited at the time, as the band’s two previous albums are firm favourites of mine. The album has now been released and I’m happy to say I was not left disappointed.
Wingo has been busy. Since Ola Podrida’s last album, Belly of the Lion, he has produced soundtracks to several films, including 2011’s Take Shelter, the recently released Mud and the forthcoming Prince Avalanche (the trailer of which you can see here). Between his composing work, he somehow found the time to assemble a live band, featuring Colin Swietek, Matt Clark and David Hobizal, and took them into a studio to record the new album.
Ghosts Go Blind is the first Ola Podrida album to be recorded fully in a proper studio and was recorded, mostly live, to tape. The press release promises an album that is “energetic and accessible” and says that Wingo’s narratives are “more personal and intimate than ever”. I would tend to agree with both statements. The album continues the band’s progression from the folky Americana seen on their debut, to fully fledged indie rock that was first conceived on Belly of the Lion, and I would agree that the current sound is likely to be more popular with new listeners. Wingo’s nostalgic and emotive writing and vocal delivery also make a welcome return, meaning that, although slightly more accessible, the album is unlikely to disappoint existing fans.
One of the strengths of Ola Podrida’s albums was the nostalgia that coursed through the music. See for example the coming-of-age tale of ‘Your Father’s Basement’, with its evocations of youth via prank calls, stolen booze and nudie magazines. One of Wingo’s main strengths as a songwriter is his ability to construct vivid and meaningful stories by offering the listener nothing more than snatches and phrases. Even his most seemingly abstract lines serve to conjure emotions and feelings.
This nostalgia is again present on Ghosts Go Blind, although perhaps the longing memories now focus on a different period of the past. Opening track, ‘Not Ready To Stop’, sets the tone and introduces the narrative that runs throughout the album.
“Come on can’t you stay out late? It’s not even eleven o’clock.
I’ve been spending all my money like a fool tonight,
and I’m not quite ready to stop”
But this attitude has changed dramatically by the album’s fifth track, ‘Staying In’, a love song where he shuns the world and all of its excitement for his love, some cigarettes and the television. He sings:
“If I knew how to dance I’d take you out,
and we’d blow everyone away.
And if you liked to dance you’d show me how,
but you don’t and I won’t, so what do you sayLet’s just stay in tonight, let’s just stay here, alright?”
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This captures the main theme of the album – the narrator coming to terms with adulthood, with all its uncertainty and isolation and the lost romance of the past. But it also hints at something else, a glimpse which suggests that everything is going to be okay, maybe even better than before.
Ghosts Go Blind is out now on Western Vinyl, get it here.