The Rocketboys - 20,000 Ghosts

Seven years ago, this writer packed out the 1983 GMC pick-up he inherited from his great-grandfather to trek across the great, brown nothingness between Houston and Abilene, TX. Four years of undergraduate course-work, falling in and out of love, mischief making, caught in the liminal space between the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood and the Wes Anderson films of my young adulthood, the best moments in the soundtrack of my life were provided by a little student band called The Rocketboys. Their melodies swept as wide as the sprawling Abilene skyline, all awash in the reverby glow familiar to any who have driven sun-visor down into the West Texas sunset. Their reso

nating guitar lines and sing-along choruses from their extended ambient rock anthems filled the enclosed walls of my shower. The wizardry of then-drummer Philip Ellis was tapped out between my steering wheel and gear shift, as their songs played out in my mind as a holdover between shows.

Fast-forward selector: present day. This writer is still caught in the nethe

rworld between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Life Aquatic, and still in Abilene working on a graduate degree. Meanwhile The Rocketboys moved on to Austin, TX about a year ago. They’ve been busy. 20,000 Ghosts, their first full-length album, has a late September release. The move to the “big city” noticeably affected their song-writing. Gone are the lengthy, etherial opuses I remember from the Abilene days. In their place is a collection of 11 new numbers to add a welcome edition to the growing ambient indie rock hymnal. The songs are shorter, but do not suffer for it. And there is just enough wideness and wash to remind you that, despite the album cover, this band cut their teeth in the land of no-trees and the see for miles blue sky.

20,000 Ghosts is an album for those caught in between. These are songs for the sailor lost at sea, and the sojourner who has left a comfortable, dying past for an uncertain, but living future. “I am a boat on the shore, but no wave is coming to take me home,” sings lead vocalist Brandon Kinder on “Take it From Me.” These are songs sung on the road between. For those of us who have choked out gospel songs through tear-stained cheeks (as in “Nineteen Twenty Nine”), for the prodigals calling to a god they do not know exists (as in “Islands”), for those gathering stones in attempt to construct a new place to settle (as in “All the Western Wind”). The road travelled on 20,000 Ghosts may sometimes be lonely, it is never travelled alone. I’m not thinking of the 20,000 ghosts haunting our sleepless nights in “Endings”, but of The Rocketboys themselves. These are songs of hope for the weary traveller. These are songs that dare to look at the bleak thunderstorm of the unknown and trudge on with only umbrella and a vague sense that things will work out for the good. This is gospel music, although it’s sister, the blues, never wanders too far away.

For those of us who face an uncertain future (and let’s get real, who does that actually exclude?) 20,000 Ghosts is shot full of a cautiously optimistic hope. I expect these infectious pilgrimage songs will be gracing my stereo (and soon enough, the walls of my shower) for a long time. This album is a welcome companion for this sojourner wondering where and what is next. It seems to say, maybe home is something that we can actually find again someday. Or even if we only find ourselves waiting for the elusive “by and by”, that the journey is one worth taking. Either way, this is an album you need by a band you need to know.