News Cool Ghouls

: Cool Ghouls
Based: San Francisco, California
Listen: ST album on Empty Cellar Records
Similar to: The Fresh & Onlys, Foxygen

San Francisco garage act Cool Ghouls released their self-titled debut LP last month via Empty Cellar Records and Burger Records. The first work was recorded and mixed with Tim Cohen of The Fresh & Onlys and Magic Trick, and just that should give you a pretty good idea of what you’re getting here: Garage rock laden with wiry guitars and a heap of imagination to boot.

While the Cool Ghouls are heavily indebted to the sixties and seventies Cohen’s self-penned press release starts out by stating that Cool Ghouls isn’t a retro act, which is true – there’s a lot more going on here. There’s a whole bunch of excellent garage rock bands from San Francisco seeping through the surface and the Cool Ghouls fit right in, although they’ve got far more in common with The Fresh & Onlys and Los Angeles duo Foxygen than, say, Thee Oh Sees.

As with Foxygen the Cool Ghouls are very much into a revivalism of the sixties and seventies. It’d be easy to mention a bunch of excellent acts from these decades that are sure to have inspired the band’s sound, but it’d both be a disservice to the group, a poor reflection on one of 2013’s most underrated releases to date.

The Cool Ghouls might not be doing anything new but they’re pretty damn good at what they’re doing, their craft being anything but run of the mill.

Stream ‘Natural Life’