Zen Ghost is the latest album by Frenchy And The Punk who are Samantha Stephenson and Scott Helland who were both in Deep Wound with Lou Barlow and J Masics. They have been working together since meeting in New York 1998. Samantha was born in France and grew up in England and the USA, Scott is from Massachusetts and was part of the mid-western hardcore scene.
The album opens with Mon Souvenir an acoustic strummed song with delightfully deep vocals leading us into Frenchy And the Punks world of goth tinged steam pop and dark folk.
Temple Of Sleep is about trying to overcome insomnia, put the voices in your head to sleep, how to achieve peaceful sleep when the world has gone totally mad, your unable to switch it all off, the swirled noises are more calming than the main guitars, while the very Siouxsie like vocals have a dark grandeur.
If The World Doesn't End First is a 21st century love song, among the ruins of normality, collapsing democracies, Pandemics, shifting allegiances, yet they still have love to hold onto, Frenchy's vocals lead you on, bewitching as the guitars pulse and strum to perfectly punctuate the vocal sentiments.
Gear Geist has ethereal voices warbling through the foreboding ether of guitars, taking you far beyond the zeitgeist into new plains of wonder.
Church Of Sound is a woebegone dark fold tale, for those in need of a positive church to prey in, go and find the Church Of Sound a place of redemption, freedom among the rhythms, slowly unfurling, drowning in the sound, as many of us worshippers of the magic of music do on a daily basis.
Come In And Play uses it's steady beat as the base for the games they want to play, with a voice this seductive singing the instructions to you, how on earth can you resist the pull of Frenchy And The Punk when they tell you to Come In And Play.
Paradise Found has falsetto vocals, as we journey deep into the memories leading them to find Paradise, hoping that it's not just a mirage, hoping to regain their feet easily through seances, mantra's and ringing acoustic guitars.
Blood goes full on vampiric dark goth folk as Frenchy wants to drink the blood of her enemies, stealing their energies, becoming ever more powerful as she becomes more than that.
Oxygen is about the breath of love, and lust over the gentlest picked guitar the vocals are part Arson Garden, part Salem 66 but with a Grace Slick twist to them.
The album closes with I'll See You Again a fond farewell to the lost, the missing in action, those that left without saying goodbye, this is a fond adieu with the sparse acoustic plucked strings full of the sadness of our times.
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