Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Treat
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2016
Length: 51:51
Rating: 4.5/5
Treat are considered one of the finest European hard rock acts of our time and place. After eighteen years of dormancy, the Swedish perfectionists woke up in 2010 with the excellent comeback album »Coup De Grace«, and just when it looked like they’d sunk into another multi-year state of »deep dormancy«, the band confirmed it was working on a new studio album.
The band, which has stayed in practically the same lineup since »Coup De Grace« with only the bass spot changing, where newcomer Pontus Egberg (King Diamond, Lion’s Share) joined the crew, keeps the musical direction of its studio predecessor on the new album.
Given what’s going on in the world today, »Ghost Of Graceland« is a document that doesn’t hide its social criticism. It goes down the roughest, of course, with the biggest moralists. Because we live in a world of deceit and manipulation, where everything has to be regulated and controlled. We’re prisoners of our own fear and our need to be protected by someone, pardon, monitored. We don’t even know how. From behind the scenes. Everything on the album points to its socially critical bent. From the title and the cover to the lyrics of most of the songs. The atmosphere of the tracks follows suit, darker than on the mostly positive »Coup De Grace«.
That said, there’s no need to »develop a theory of relativity« while listening to the new album. With »Ghost of Graceland« Treat once again prove their compositional brilliance and sonic refinement, showing off all the fine mechanics of songwriting through detailed intros and outros and a cunning build-up of moods that culminate in infectious, instantly memorable choruses loaded with multi-part vocal harmonies. So there’s more melancholy and more darkness than on the predecessor, and within the otherwise cemented genre predictability, the tracks pack a decent dose of dynamics inside the main phrases themselves. From start to finish they grab you with the defined atmospheric stance of true drama theater, accompanied, of course, by a conjured-up touch of bombast. The drama theater is especially pronounced in the sequence of the album’s middle »triplet« of Inferno, Alien Erthlings and Nonstop Madness. The guitar phrases are superbly backed by keyboards, and the chunky Hammond organ sound confirms it too, right from the opening energy catalyst of the title track and I Don’t Miss the Misery after it.
Treat also forge chorus melodies on the new album with such hyper-melodic infectiousness that picking your favorite tracks is purely a matter of individual musical perception. The six-year break between the new album and its predecessor yielded a heap of varied ideas, which Treat polished down to the last detail. The timing was right. On »Ghost of Graceland« the exceptional Andreas Wikström once again impresses to the fullest, firing off some breakneck guitar passages and breathtaking solo adventures in the »mid-eight« sections. Vocalist Robert Ernlund holds on to all of his authoritative vocal poise even in his mature years, lurking in a clean, highly melodic »ambush« through every vocal sequence, the basic building block with which the band instantly wins the favor of any hard rock fan.
Thirteen superbly seasoned tracks of first-rate hard rock preaching don’t let up for a second in their message. The band channeled every last line of energy into squeezing out an album of perfect compositional craft, where high musical value and direct rock’n’roll excitement shake hands, aesthetically, all the way through. Honestly, it can’t get any better. Treat once again prove their artistic stature, which puts them in a special spot on the hard rock map of the world.
Treat – Ghost of Graceland (official video):
Lineup
Robert Ernlund – vocals
Anders Wikström – guitar, backing vocals (lead vocals on the track “Together Alone”)
Patrick Appelgren – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals
Pontus Egberg – bass guitar
Jamie Borger – drums
Production
Peter Mansson & Anders Wikström
Track list
01. Ghost Of Graceland
02. I Don’t Miss The Misery
03. Better The Devil You Know
04. Do Your Own Stunts
05. Endangered
06. Inferno
07. Alien Earthlings
08. Nonstop Madness
09. Too Late To Die Young
10. House On Fire
11. Together Alone
12. Everything To Everyone
