It may have been recorded in a living room with gaffer tape and few electrical wires but it sounds like it was conceived round a beach campfire with loyal and trusted friends.
It may have been recorded in a living room with gaffer tape and few electrical wires but it sounds like it was conceived round a beach campfire with loyal and trusted friends.
Dame Satan. Now there’s a name! I like it too, to be honest but it’s a bit misleading. The album’s called Ghost Mansion and when I scanned the track listing on the reverse and saw that the first two tracks were called Ghost Warrior and Big Weed I expected some thuddy, druggy stoner rock nonsense. I wasn’t looking too forward to playing the cd itself, but I took a chance and pressed play.
Wow. This was a pleasant surprise. In fact, it was rather pleasant all round because Dame Satan turn out to be absolutely nothing like the leather clad, weed smoking Satan worshippers I imagined them to be. I’m not sure if they suit the name Dame Satan to be honest, rather they should be called something like 4 Blokes In A Living Room or 4 Lads Round A Campfire. Something along those lines anyway, because that’s what they sound like. Still, Dame Satan is a cool name and it’s the music that counts (for the most part) so I’ll move on.
Dame Satan are four lads from San Francisco. I don’t know what’s in the water around there, but with Birds Of America, Okay, Last Of The Blacksmiths and Sean Smith to name but a few, there seems to be a fantastic group of bands appearing in the Bay Area lately. Dame Satan fit in really well with that bunch because Ghost Mansion is laid back, soulful and very, very charming. When you look at the CD, forget the name, forget the song titles and forget the wispy, floaty drawing on the cover, the clue is in the colour. Ghost mansion is cool blue.
I’ve been listening to this album for a little while now and although it’s really good to hear when I’m relaxing in the house, it sounds at its best when you’re outdoors. There’s hardly any percussion on the album, in fact apart from a tambourine at the end there isn’t any at all, so it kind of floats along like a gentle breeze. The voices seem almost ethereal too; gentle, relaxed and almost distant. The musicianship is excellent and the arrangements are wonderful. Big Weed is very relaxing, Golden Gate is gorgeous for every single second of its 6 minutes and 35 seconds and No City is one of the best things I’ve heard all year. It contains some wonderful vocal harmonies, a playful structure and some beautiful banjo plucking. The rest of the album ain’t half bad either. The closing track is an absolute delight. The band seem really happy and vibrant, certainly more so than on the rest of the album, and the sheer delight they take in singing Baby I Want You Dead is infectious. I can’t help but smile when they start because that’s when the tambourine comes out and they just have a party.
The album isn’t something you’ll spend a lot of time singing along to, but you’ve got to admire lyrical touches like “My head’s still buzzing like the back of a bee,” and, “Way up in the hills now, with the wind and the fog / You try to kindle a fire, with a match and a log.” I don’t think there’s any chance of this album breaking into the Top 40, it’s far too understated and relaxed to be considered a mainstream affair, but that’s no reason for you to not try and find it. The album is self released, so you’ll have to either attend one of their shows, or click on over to their website to get a hold of it but if you do so, you’ll find a sparkling little treasure indeed.
All in all, Ghost Mansion is an absolute delight. It may have been recorded in a living room with gaffer tape and few electrical wires but it sounds like it was conceived round a beach campfire with loyal and trusted friends. There’s a wonderful sense of camaraderie to Dame Satan that really shines through and Ghost Mansion has a kind of relaxed attitude but there’s an ethereal, almost eerie quality to it which I like immensely. It’s like the fog in San Francisco. It’s beautiful but it doesn’t seem real. It runs down the street like in the movies, as opposed to the low lying pea soup we find here in the Flat Lands or back in Blighty. Where our fog is bleak and oppressing, the Bay Area fog seems almost supernatural and exciting, creeping fingerlike down hillsides. There’s a subtle but beautiful difference and that’s what Dame Satan are, subtle and beautiful, with a dark undercurrent. I love this.
Words : Damian Leslie