GhostGirl may not be on your radar yet, but Nocturnal makes it pretty clear what kind of sound Amber, a London-based alternative artist, is building. A self-taught guitarist who has cut her teeth on the city’s live circuit, she delivers five tracks drawing on gothic rock, alternative metal, emo and nu metal, but with a more contemporary feel.
“Waste Away” takes you straight back to early-2000s alternative metal: heavily down-tuned guitars, short, dry riffs, a prominent bass and a dark edge that at times recalls Deftones. There’s a touch of Evanescence too, in that mix of big guitars, melodic vocals and production that could have come straight out of 2003. The difference is Amber’s voice. She never tries to overpower the music. It’s light, fragile, almost pop, and that contrast with the weight around it is one of the things that makes the EP work.
When Nocturnal slows things down, more of its personality starts to come through. On “Illusions” and “Milestiba”, GhostGirl heads somewhere more atmospheric, mixing modern metal with ambient, dream pop and subtle electronics. “Illusions” has something of Spiritbox at their cleanest and most open. “Milestiba”, meanwhile, is almost an electronic gothic power ballad: ethereal, melancholic and very restrained. The pop side comes through more clearly here, not in huge choruses but in simple, direct vocal melodies.
The lyrics keep coming back to identity, loss, faith and the need to feel something, even when it hurts. Amber moves between extremes: feeling everything or nothing at all, losing herself in someone else, holding on to spirituality, or trying to recognise herself after the damage. From “I don’t feel like myself” on “Waste Away” to “Remember who you are” on “Dancing With My Shadow”, there’s a clear emotional thread running through all five songs without Nocturnal ever needing to turn itself into a concept record.
“Faith” pushes that tension into darker alternative metal, with heavy, compressed guitars that still leave room for atmosphere and pop melody. “Dancing With My Shadow” closes the EP with a more open sound, closer to alternative rock and melodic post-grunge, building into a crescendo that brings Flyleaf to mind.
What makes GhostGirl stand out isn’t so much what she mixes as how she does it. There’s a lot of melancholy here, a lot of delicacy, and no need to mistake intensity for aggression. On Nocturnal, the guitars don’t crush the vulnerability; they wrap around it. And it’s right there, between pop fragility, gothic darkness and atmospheric metal, that GhostGirl starts to sound like herself.
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