Team Ghost – Rituals

Following up their two towering EPs in 2010, Team Ghost's much-anticipated full-length debut benefits from the band's expansion – backed by a new rhythm section, and having incorporated synth-enthusiast and producer Benoît de Villeneuve into their songwrtiting process, the sound of Rituals is big in every way. Guitars are layered and treated with fuzzed-out shoegaze textures, while de Villeneuve's synths pulse and strobe in the background.

First and foremost though, Team Ghost are a rock band, and they more than prove their chops on the brooding, propulsive Curtains. Somebody's Watching explores voyeurism with incipient menace, while the anthemic Dead Film Star, with de Villeneuve on lead vocals, is a thrilling highlight with multi-tracked vocals, complex uptempo drums and towering, shimmering synths behind virtuoso guitar lines.

Instrumental track Things Are Sometimes Tragic brings in a hint of techno; Broken Devices uses beatless, gothic electronica; while Team Ghost dissolves into howling screeds of feedback. Nicely balancing moments of all-out rock and melancholic, reflective electronics, it's a consistently strong first foot. [Bram E. Gieben]