by Patrick Pilch (@pratprilch)
Chicago’s Red Scarves take an imaginative and subversive take on clean cut guitar rock. The immensely talented four piece always seem to reach their destination, but they are intent on taking the scenic route to get there. A winding passage, a turn of phrase; the band chases down beauty taking the long way home. Ghost Hunter, named after the fleeting feeling of attempting to capture the overwhelming grandiose of initial inspiration, seeks to record Red Scarves’ big ideas at their inception. If the songs on the band’s latest EP aren’t exactly how they first sounded in their heads, I’m just glad they put pen to paper, thought to chord.
“Thoughts coalesce into something beautiful/I reach out and they disperse,” sings Ryan Donlin on the opening title track. “The image fades too quickly/A Polaroid developing in reverse.” “Ghost Hunter” goes double time and squeezes in a key change guitar solo before returning to center, all in two and a half minutes. It’s an encompassing introduction to the ambitious EP and the band as a whole, exhibiting the Red Scarves’ versatility as players and collective knack of seamlessly shifting between styles.
The band, made up of Braden Poole (vocals, guitar), Ayethaw Tun (vocals, guitar, bass), Ryan Donlin (vocals, bass, guitar, keys), and Robby Kuntz (drums, percussion, keys), take a staggeringly bold and collaborative approach to jazz-influenced chamber pop. It should be noted that each member is incredibly good at their respective instruments. They all take on songwriting duties, and drummer vocalist Robby Kuntz takes on the arduous task of being a drummer vocalist.
Red Scarves lyrics are witty and thoughtful, exploring post-relationship self-reflection on “DKHTBA,” and what it means to be a real, worthy, goal-scoring man on “Just Like a Man.” It’s fun to hear Jesus Christ’s name go from blaspheme to the lost, L-hopping, pamphlet preacher, string-sandelled subject on “Divine Line.” Ghost Hunter succinctly wrangles themes of isolation, inspiration, divination, and toxic masculinity into Red Scarves’ strongest release of their career.