In the last decade, Daniel Davies has become a lauded composer of atmospheric,
synth-heavy instrumental music-for film and TV scores, alongside John
Carpenter on the director's Lost Themes albums, and on solo releases like Signals
and Spies. But in his previous musical life, Davies was a rocker, touring all over
the world with heavy bands like Year Long Disaster and Karma to Burn. After
setting rock music aside to focus on his soundtrack and instrumental work, the
multi-instrumentalist has found himself falling back in love with loud guitars
over the past couple of years.
Ghost of the Heart, the first full-length alt-rock album Davies has ever released
under his own name, captures the excitement of that rediscovered love. After
a decade of making music that either had to match a filmed image or create a
mental one, he sounds liberated by the concrete, reliable logic of verse/chorus/
verse. The songs on Ghost of the Heart don't fit neatly into any one subgenre:
they're moody, heavy, and a little proggy, but with a strong pop sensibility and
lots of melody. The album divulges Davies' affinity for hooky, forward-thinking
bands like Radiohead and Blur, but more than anything, Ghost of the Heart feels
natural, like he's tapping back into something fundamental about himself as a
musician. "My first love is writing rock songs," Davies says. "It just felt like the
right time to get back to it."
Ghost of the Heart is a special album for Davies. It sees him returning to his
origins in rock music, but it also couldn't have been made without the lessons of
his time in the film world. In the truest sense, it's a career-defining work, one that
showcases everything he's learned in his decades as a musician. It reveals a door
that, now opened, can take Davies anywhere he wants to go.
