Ghostholding - Venturing: Review
Review by Lavender:
Venturing is one of several side projects of singer-songwriter Jane Remover. It's been around since at least 2023 and focuses on a vintage shoegaze style. It's a sound that's analogous to the dissonant instrumentals on her landmark 2023 album Census Designated, one of my favorite rock records of the entire 2020s so far. Fittingly, I was excited to see what Jane had to offer drilling more directly into the sound and the results are pretty solid.
Let's get some of the tracks I didn't care for as much out of the way first. The opener "Play My Guitar" is striking at first but the more times I re-listened to the album the less impressed I was by it. That's mostly because it builds to a very dramatic finale but the vocal performance kind of falls apart completely right when it's hitting its stride. There are even worse singing issues on my least favorite track on the record "We Don't Exist" which seems like it needed another take really badly, especially on the "woah woahs."
The biggest issue with the record overall is that it picks and sound and sticks VERY tightly to it. Occasionally that sonic cohesion makes for great passages of a few hits in a row but other times it makes even good songs feel a bit innocuous in the tracklist. "Believe" is one of the simpler songs here in terms of structure and presentation. It even has an earworm hook but one that isn't nearly AS catchy as a lot of what's to come. "Halloween" never blew me away as a single even though I can give it credit for the pummeling instrumentation and winding guitars it deploys. Plus there's "Recoil" which I would argue is straight up Parannoul pastiche and I like Parannoul's version a lot better.
But even within the slim sonic parameters the album sets for itself, it accomplishes some amazing things. The first half of the record has songs like "No Sleep" which is a real isntrumental wonder with this strange groove that I find so infectious. It also features my favorite deep cut "Guesthouse" which is an instant standout for its sweeter demeanor and surprisingly literal candor from Jane. The refrains throughout the song also just will NOT leave my head. It's a subtle track for sure but a touching one that continues to feel so satisfying.
If I was in a toxic posessive straight relationship with a man "Spider" would be the song I put on my corny Instagram stories. That sounds like a diss but the song is actually a really interesting and raw lyrical distribe about Jane's desire to feel possessed and it lands on this blown-out overwhelming finale I love. That coincides with "Something has to change" the angstiest point on the album where her yearning reaches a fever pitch. I love how quiet the instrumental is as Jane just undercuts and contradicts herself throughout as her feelings change so rapidly.
My last favorite deep cut is "Sick / relapse" which comes snuggled amidst all the singles at the end of the record. It's the longest song here and it really makes that entire journey felt. From it's sparse beginning to the extremely satisfying rush of energy around the halfway point it's engaging throughout. In particular, I love Jane calling out "I feel crazy for loving you so" which makes for one of the best moments on the record.
That leaves a trio of singles that end the album off highlighted by my favorite of the bunch "Dead Forever." The track thematically reminds me a lot of the title track from Census Designated where it's evocative sexual imagery seems to be an analogy for gripes about the machine of the music industry. It has a roaring hook and one of the catchiest choruses on the entire album. I also love famous girl which feels like the good version of "Recoil" with its youthful lyrics and propulsive tempo. And the whole things ends with "Sister" which wraps up the albums themes really nicely and works better as a closing track than it ever did as a single.
The sound of Ghostholdingis very much indebted to a more narrow view of shoegaze than Jane's last album under her own name. But within those parameters it allows itself to explore the hyper-specific sound in more detail and occasionally emerge with great results. For every song that falls innocuously into the mix there's two more that erupt back out of it with soaring hooks and great lyrical flourishes. The result is a solid shoegaze album that won't set the world on fire like Census Designated, but will serve fans of that album's noisiest moments more of the rush they crave. 7/10
Check out my review of Ethel Cain's Perverts
