Kscope
Bruce Soord, the front man and architect of The Pineapple Thief, has released his fourth solo album, less than three years after the excellent “Luminescence”.
“Ghosts in the Park” cannot disappoint, though it is a markedly different record to its predecessor. The strings, the rich, sweeping sound world and production, are gone, and in their place is a very different atmosphere. The clue is very much in the name. If “Luminescence” was more abstract, more philosophical, more uplifting, “Ghosts in the Park” is darker, haunted by more personal reflections.
Soord is understandably unapologetic about using his solo work to explore more personal themes, in this case amongst others his loss of his father to dementia and his all too human desire to reconstruct a fuller memory of him, wanting to remember the man he had known all his life rather than merely at the end. “Meet Me On The Downs” speaks most directly about this, with its references to scatted photographs and the refrain “memento mori”.
The lyrics then are generally more direct, and the vocals are plaintive, touching, invested with a very personal tone. We are left with the sense we are eavesdropping on a conversation where we don’t quite know the subject but the participants know it all too well. “This house is not in order”, he sings on “Pillars” but we’re left in the dark about what is out of kilter, “What I couldn’t do… what I failed to do” he mourns to his listener on “Kept Me Thinking” but we still don’t know what he has done wrong, “We always knew we’d end up in this predicament” but the nature of the difficulty is not revealed, “You left me a debt I can never repay” he sings on “Started Down”, but the nature of the debt is unclear. Sometimes, the lyrics are so direct and affecting, we don’t need the context, “You made a promise you’d always look after me – is it now a lie?”.
The music is by and large starker, the arrangements simpler, also more immediate, the ambience more compressed, suggesting a smaller space. Listening to the record, for example on “Started Down”, you can almost feel Soord sitting right in front of you, a few feet away, his hands articulating one of those shimmering arpeggios which are one of his trademarks, played with just the right amount of delicacy and pointed accuracy. Here too are the harmonics and open tunings that he so often uses so effectively. The guitar playing is absolutely first-rate throughout, with the playing on “Day of Wrath” reminiscent of the relentless counterpoint of a round played by the Guitar Craft movement. On the other hand, the lead electric guitars, all played by Soord, are edgy, aggressive, explosive, barely contained. Again, this is a different sound than both “Luminesce” and his playing on TPT. It’s uncomfortable, arresting, direct. That on “Started Down” is perhaps the best, disappearing at the end of the track with a dissolving howl.
Where he does expand the production, like on “Meet Me On The Downs”, it is for effect, it is part of the storytelling rather than simply being the colour of the record. So, the production becomes another instrument. “Day of Wrath” is the best example of this, with the instrumentation expanding into a wall of sound for the middle 8, one of the few examples of a synth backing filling out the music. More often, like on “Our Predicament” he leaves the human voice to enrich the sound, with choral-style backing vocals.
The title track warrants its own commentary. On an album made up of many shorter songs, this twelve minute piece alone makes the record worth listening to. It is episodic, dynamic, and shifting. It falls in and out, boldly disappearing almost completely at the close, with just a trace of Soord’s voice hanging in the void. The arrangement is also the most complex of the record, with guitars pilling up, coming and going, sometimes reduced to a single voice ticking like a clock. Like passing memories, elusive, impossible to hold onto, but capable of taking hold of us in an instant, this track more than anything speaks to Soord’s programme. This piece is the keystone to the arch of the record. Perhaps the stories in miniature revealed as if through windows in the other songs are the “Ghosts” of the title, “they come, one by one, how they toy with you… and with that, they’re gone”. Also, unlike the other songs, this appears to be addressed to someone who is not present or not listening – it is a commentary, an observation, though in the second person; only later does he appeal to his interlocutor to remember. The refrain chord progression is classic Soord, emotionally and sonically satisfying. The repeating motifs and textures never tire, the changes in dynamics and harmonisation making their return every bit as effective as in any sonata as the intensity at the end of the record is levered to near breaking point.
“Luminesce” was a masterpiece, a hard act to follow and in “Ghosts in the Park”, Soord has written a very different album, however much it contains many of his motifs and marks of style and is transparently his record. This is a record that requires immersion and also is at its most moving if you attend closely to the lyrics which, however allusive, play such an important part in sculpting its atmosphere. With that, you will discover a record every bit as rich as its predecessor and subtle and beautiful in its own way.
5/6 | Alex Maines
Release date: 15 May 2026