Album Review: The Five Hundred – Ghostwriter (Prime Collective)

The Five Hundred are set to deliver their most ambitious work to date with their third full-length album, ‘Ghostwriter’. Exploring themes of societal collapse, human despair, and the fragility of freedom under the crushing weight of oppression, it will be released on February 28th through Prime Collective.

Exceptionally powerful and eccentrically clever, The Five Hundred’s new album is captivating stuff. Drawing from a dramatic place, it begins with a heady harmonised bang (the synth is killer) with The Death of All We Know, a track that features the talents of Danish rock band, Siamese, the first of several high-profile guests.

It’s an opening track that grabs the attention, but it’s the following Rainmaker that really sets the senses alight. Not only because it features the immense talents of Aaron Matts of ten.56 (delivering heavy vocals), but because it sees The Five Hundred digging deeper into emotive layers, creating haunting atmosphere, and still putting their power front and centre. It is, surprisingly, an anthem, it’s just one that will make you feel.

Which is the encapsulation of the entire album. The Five Hundred have written something that will makes you feel, regardless of heaviness, speed, intensity, melodramatics, and more. It’s what makes the album so special and it’s what ensures all listeners will be fully focused on it as Ruin offers up a short piece of sombre melody and New World explodes with vibrant life. An outstanding pairing, especially as the latter has some technical heavy touches.

It just gets better and better as it goes on too. First, there is In the Dark, which brings huge sounding electronica to the forefront of a banging chorus, alongside thumping drums and latter part vocal growls that are some of the most intense of the album. Then there is Dragged Out, which has creative progressive vibes, getting darker and heavier as it goes on, and featuring the mighty As Everything Unfolds. Whereas Bodies is all about the vocals, especially when it’s just them and some light effects to give it more atmosphere. At least until just after the halfway point, when the drums and guitars arrive to ‘up the ante’ and make this one of the album’s moat powerful tracks of all.

That’s a tough track to follow, but credit to The Five Hundred, they’re on unstoppable form here. Continuing to deliver enlightening, interesting, and emotionally effective rock and metal that cleverly genre-bends, without pushing the limits of any particular style. The latter half of the album features brilliance like Empty Hope, which is the kind of track you sink into. It features Echoes, which goes hard. Then there’s Chaos Sermon, a thick combo of metal and melody that puts Sikth in a prominent place. Before the record wraps up with Where Is Our Humanity?

Guess what? It’s another absolute banger. The Five Hundred ending things as they begun, in harmonised and dramatic fashion. We’ve all been under their spell, and their hold has been so strong, it’s hard to think of anything else afterwards. An outstanding effort.

The Five Hundred – Ghostwriter Track Listing:

1. The Death of All We Know (Feat. Siamese)
2. Rainmaker (Feat. ten56.)
3. Ruin
4. New World
5. In the Dark
6. Dragged Out (Feat. As Everything Unfolds)
7. Bodies
8. Empty Hope
9. 20 Days
10. Echoes
11. Chaos Sermon (Feat. Sikth)
12. Where Is Our Humanity?

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