Renee Heartfelt "Death Of A Ghost" (Textbook Music)

I remember hearing Renee Heartfelt's demo a few years back. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I filed the band as one to watch for in the future. After a strong debut ep release the band follows it up with their first full-lenth album. If post-hardcore has ever meant anything to you then Renee Heartfelt will surely make you swoon. Touching on genre-bearers such as Quicksand, Texas Is The Reason and Samiam, Renee Heartfelt put forth quite an incredible debut album. Considering the members of Renee Heartfelt were all in straight up hardcore bands before this makes it all the more impressive. Death Of A Ghost is an album that shows the experience of the players involved and perhaps pays tribute to some of their core influences.

This is certainly an impressive debut for Renee Heartfelt and one that takes the promise of the band's earlier material and expands on it greatly. The strong emotive vocals of Peter Appleby are well out in front as they should be. The songs on this album seem to be more fleshed out then earlier material. Tempos and textures are used in beautiful ways. At times you have an almost shoegazing quality to the music and on the slower tunes you can definitely see some early U2 influence on the band. The tight musicianship of the band is remarkable and it is beyond belief that this is only the band's debut album. The band sounds like a veteran group that has been together for years and years. I suppose a lot of people will accuse Renee Heartfelt of living in the past. However, Renee Heartfelt add some nice flourishes to this sound. So, for people like me who will always have a soft spot for bands of this nature, Death Of A Ghost is a much-needed and welcome addition.

RIYL: Quicksand, Failure, U2

Listen: Renee Heartfelt – Control (mp3)