Album Review: Modern Baseball - Holy Ghost

With their third studio full-length Holy Ghost, Philly indie-punk darlings Modern Baseball have achieved their greatest success to date — and all it took was overcoming some of their biggest challenges to get there.

Split into two distinct halves — the first six written by co-frontman Jake Ewald, the final five by his counterpart, Brendan Lukens — the album is a profoundly personal, heart-wrenchingly candid and musically mature expression of a band who, despite their already significant acclaim, are just coming into their own. Both Ewald and Lukens contended with fundamental devastations on the way to creating this album — the former, the loss of his grandfather; the latter, a near-suicide attempt that ultimately spurred him to seek treatment — and their emotional, intellectual and musical efforts to come to terms with their experiences are worn proudly and beautifully on their sleeves throughout. 

The album opens on the minimalist, mournful title track, gently plucked acoustic guitar and Ewald's across-the-room vocals proving all the weapon that MoBo needs to ensnare their listener. A brief surge of reverb flourishes and collapses, giving way to the high-energy drive of Wedding Singer, Ewald's suggestive utterance of the second half of the lyric, 'Left the TV flickering its staged/ romance across your face' an early vocal highlight. 

This dichotomy of tone — the sense that something dark is unfolding despite the surrounding cheeriness — is a key talent that MoBo has mastered over the course of their three studio full-lengths, and it's an ability well on display in Note To Self, which — although it ruminates, 'What's the point of staying awake?' and contains notions of being 'drunk and worthless/ spewing bullshit/ all across the stage' — is an ultimately uplifting anthem of defiance in its assertion that, 'There will be no more fucking around today'.

Frequently occurring throughout Ewald's half of the album, too, are repeat references to specific locations (Ottawa in Note To Self, Baltimore in Wedding Singer) — and this is a trend that maintains as the album rounds to standout effort Mass, which follows lovesickness through Massachusetts, Barton, Binghamton, South Philly, Nebraska, Austin, Texas, and the bathroom of a Valero service station. It's vivid lyricism like this — transporting the listener out of their living room or bedroom or public train or wherever and into any exact moment they were left wishing they were anywhere closer to someone they loved — that makes MoBo's words every bit as important as their infectious, concisely written instrumentation. Their unflappable penchant for clever asides ('The cashier here is ruthless/ Jeanette, I wrote your name down') doesn't hurt, either. 

Everyday marks another strong entry on the record; being one of the first tracks we heard from Holy Ghost, that's unsurprising, but its remarkable nature lies more in its sedated tempo and the delayed-gratification deliciousness of that see-sawing outro than because it's strong on the outright bop of, say, 2014 single Your Graduation.

Ewald's half of Holy Ghost comes to a close with the introspective Hiding, which pulls the soundscape right back to its most minimal, allowing flourishes of percussion and strings to occasionally intrude on the sparsity before an encroaching crescendo sees the song explode into a body-rocking jam before ringing out and giving way to the Lukens-centric side B. There's barely time to pause to consider the ramifications of shift right now, though; Coding These To Lukens comes stomping out of the gate all gang vocals and angular guitars, upping the punk factor instantly with stupendous results.

This ferocity of spirit doesn't go anywhere in a hurry — Breathing In Stereo picks up the pace even further, allowing a moment to catch breath during its bridge-to-outro, where Lukens reflects, 'Why does it take two thousand miles for me to say "I love you"?' before ultimately sprinting to the finish over repeated beliefs that, 'We'll make it together'.

Things switch up a bit from here; Apple Cider, I Don't Mind — the counterpart to Everyday as one of the earliest tastes from the record — offers up the most instantly lush soundscape so far, the open hi-hats providing rolling, splashing background as the band's guitarists take a fiddlier, cleaner tack than usual, immediately abandoned for the crunchy tones of What If..., a no-holds-barred self-assessment that masks its inward attacks with its punchy, fist-pumping chorus and unrelenting drive. Album closer Just Another Face kicks off with similarly downcast sentiments — its opening lyric is 'I'm a waste of time and space' — but, as you should have come to expect by now, is ultimately an affecting, anthemic and buoyant piece, its chorus both a statement of determination ('If it's all the same, it's time to confront this face to face') and hope ('Even if you can't see it now/ we're proud of what's to come/ and you').

And, if nothing else, Holy Ghost is an album of determination and hope. The band have previously described their songs as akin to a journal, equal parts confession and documentation; of youth, growth, depression, joy, sadness, hope. These 11 songs have deeply personal roots, and yet, in less than half an hour, their sharp, relatable lyrics and undeniable hooks and arrangements grab hold tightly and refuse to let go, like the best kind of reassuring hug when you most need it. Then again, for those who have charted their progress since 2012's Sports, it should come as little surprise that they've knocked it out of the park once more.