The Hollow Roots are grounded deep in their own world, where “old meets new.” The band’s style of rock bites like a beast on a leash—willingly tame. The band offers a little sampling of everything on Ghost(s), an album that has a costume for just about any occasion. You’ll find yourself shifting gears from grunge to blues pretty quickly. All 11 songs on the collection lean toward different styles of rock, so alternative rock fans will undoubtedly enjoy it to some degree.
Ghost(s) struts an array of colors, all of which maintain unique identities.
Zach Chadwick, Colton Delgado, Tyler Stonewall and Billy Kitterman all met in the halls of MTSU. The band, formerly known as The Hollows, got started in Murfreesboro’s local music circuit in 2011. Since then, the guys have migrated to Nashville and stirred up a fair bit of noise in Nashville’s rock ’n’ roll scene. Ghost(s) is the second album in the band’s young discography, following a self-titled debut.
The flavor profile of this album changes each track, bringing quite a few notable artists to mind. It sounds like Queens of the Stone Age made The Hollow Roots’ list of influences, among similar landmark bands from the ’90s, Nirvana being one example. A dollop of brisk California surf-rock is dropped into a few songs, blending well with the bundle of other styles at play. There’s enough variation on the album to keep the wheels turning, but sometimes the similarities to other bands is distracting. It’d be nice to hear more “new” than “old” from The Hollow Roots.
Quality-wise, the album sounds ready for the radio. Ghost(s) features some really tight mixes that sound great. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to a record with punchy drums like these. The guitar tracks all chime with rich personalities. A lot of the variance in style on this album comes from the wide range of guitar tones they captured.
The supercharged boogie-rocker “Queen of Nothing” features an uncaged vocal performance, while things cool down on tracks like “I’ve Been Waiting,” which leads with steady soul. The production is well-done. Overall, there’s little to gripe about regarding the production itself.
Great songs are scattered all over the album. Unfortunately, there isn’t much of anything that brings The Hollow Roots out of the norm. Many would probably agree that it sounds great for alternative rock, but The Hollow Roots trade too many faces to remember. Nevertheless, Ghost(s) is a reliable fix of local rock ’n’ roll.
Ghost(s) is available on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon. Visit thehollowroots.com to keep up with the band.
