The Lawrence Arms - Ghost Stories (CD)

All Music Guide

Ghost Stories came out less than half a year after the Lawrence Arms' debut, A Guided Tour of Chicago, but it's a toptobottom improvement over their monochromatic first album. It's not a return to singer/songwriters Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan's earlier band, the Broadways, in terms of that group's poppunk sound, but that group's attention to melodic detail, which had been largely absent from A Guided Tour of Chicago, returns in full here, making it a much more varied and interesting listen. Also, McCaughan steps up to the vocal mic a bit more often than before, further enriching the sound. Finally, the songwriting is simply much better this time out, with brief little posthardcore gems like "Sixteen Hours" and the jangly, hypnotic "Minute" offsetting more expansive songs like the comic starstruck story "Light Breathing (Me and Martha Plimpton In A Fancy Elevator)." Even better efforts were forthcoming, but Ghost Stories was a most encouraging improvement. - Stewart Mason, All Mu...sic Guide Read more Less