War has come to Europa in Beyond the Ghost's new album, The Desolation Age

January of 2021 saw the music project Beyond the Ghost expand into a new direction of cinematic dark ambient with the album, The Last Resort. Never complacent to settle with one style or particular story presentation, composer Pierre Laplace has constantly shifted and changed style and narrative with his music. Early albums such Eternal Drift had the ethereal qualities of a soul journey through the Purgatory of spaces, and the more recent Crier’s Bane took us to the grim streets of Victorian London under the desperate fear of Jack the Ripper. The Last Resort began a new narrative series for Beyond the Ghost; this time we are given a look at a dystopian Europe, a bleak future of famine, pestilence, and political upheaval - all from the confines of a small tavern in Berlin set in the year 2060. 

Beyond the Ghost presents us with the second album in the Europa Series, The Desolation Age. Strife and hardship are still the rigours of life in Europe, and and now, in the year 2061, war. Political and societal tensions have collapsed under the weight of limited resources, hunger, and sickness, and The Desolation Age paints us a darkened, digital image of a war-torn Europe - of a society caught in the throes of desperate warfare and savagery.

The album opens with a sense of trepidation, and on the whole, the mood and presentation is chillingly delightful. There is almost a slight melancholy to the chord structures at the beginning of the album, and the spectral voices that waft among the aural visages add to the gloom. There is a defined momentum to this album - hints of Vangelis, but moribund and foreboding. Songs have a definite progression, and each track reveals composer Laplace’s intent as no song feels out of place, nor is any track “filler”. Every song - every note - is placed with purpose, from the cadenced overtures of the beginning, to the piano litany in the ending track, Lights Out, which leaves we listeners on a somber cliffhanger of sorts, as we are left to ponder the fate of the continental conflict that has consumed Europa.

I love this album. It is the soundtrack to a movie I wish had been made in that magical ‘85-’90s era of films. Each song has a body of imposing aura, as each song expands upon the story BtG has crafted, yet every song stands alone and can be identified by their individual sounds (many times this is a difficult task in this particular genre of music). This is one of the stronger albums on the Cryo Chamber roster, by far, and you can pick up The Desolation Age in CD Digipak and digital format on the Cryo Chamber Bandcamp page.