Way back in April of 2016, we picked Ghost King’s album “Bones” as our NYC Record of the Month. A lot of things have changed since 2016 (not just in the music world…) but we are still just as excited to hear new music from this band. Their new album, titled “Dunbar Swamp”, is a distillation of everything we love about Ghost King: the sludgy guitars bouncing between dissonance and melody, the ability to compensate dark moments with playful chords and lyric, the edgy but controlled psychedelic production. Ghost King proclaims this to be a “record about self discovery”, but it feels more like one of self actualization, one made by a band at the height of their powers. We hope they keep it up. Stream “Dunbar Swamp” below. - Sunny Betz

Slacker rock is often unfairly misunderstood from wider audiences. The lo-fi and haphazard veneer often gets misconstrued for lazy songwriting, but bands like Ghost King illustrate why that misconception is so undeserved. On "Slither," they combine the more psychedelic riffs of surf rock with the rickety velocity of garage rock, swerving back and forth through these inspirations with ease, effusing a multifaceted, hardworking ethos. The video for this latest single features the group dedicated to cleaning their community in an enthusiastic and slipshod manner, mirroring the dynamic sound of their music. This latest single is the first release from their upcoming album Dunbar Swamp which will release next January, and you can stream the video below. -Tucker Pennington 

Brooklyn's Ghost King tickled our aural canal the right way this past spring with their debut album 'Bones,' which was immediately crowned with our NYC Record of the Month title, and we are thrilled to premiere their two track single entitled 'Melting Sky / Inside Out." Their sound is still as distorted and effected as it gets, in a way that's definitely nineties, but more reminiscent of the early Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev's fuzzy psychedelic lunacy than Pavement or Dinosaur Jr.'s pop slacking. Opening track 'Melting Sky' travels at high speed, hosting a slow vocal melody, and progressively building towards two psychedelic instrumental bridges. 'Inside Out' displays a poppier structure and catchier melody, but also a more dissonant arrangement, evolving, through a very early-Pink-Floydian transition, into a distorted bass driven, pummeling finale. They are both songs that will be fun to experience live when Ghost King will perform at Shea Stadium on 11.28 - do not miss!

We enjoyed Ghost King's 2016 debut album "Bones" so much that we made it NYC Record of the Month back in April. The album sounds like a noteworthy recap of the (indie) guitar rock sound of the '90s, with references to bands as disparate and glorious as Sonic Youth, the Violent Femmes, Pavement, The Pixies and Guided by Voices. The band will be performing at the Gateway on July 30th within a festival organized by a new blog focused on the Tri State Area Punk/DIY scene called Microscene. Check out their new video for under two minute single 'Till You Belong to Me."

Read the Q&A with Ghos King about pedals and other guitar gear used in "Bones"