“Psychosomatic Immortality” by Secret Ghost Champion

The reviews for Secret Ghost Champion’s long anticipated sophomore album Psychosomatic Immortality are starting to come in, and it looks like all lights are green for the disc and the band!  Read an excerpt from today’s full page review by the Fort Worth Weekly below or take in the whole thing here:

Secret Ghost Champion Wins

With its heady new album, Psychosomatic Immortality, the Fort Worth quintet breaks out.

Wednesday, 26 October 2011 09:11 ANTHONY MARIANI

For Ben Hance, frontman and lyricist for Fort Worth’s Secret Ghost Champion, the only “romantic” relationship that seems to matter is the one with the Man Upstairs, whomever he/she/it may be, which is admirable. Few North Texas bands purveying the kind of poppy/Big Star-ish psychedelia immortalized on his band’s long-awaited, recently released debut album Psychosomatic Immortality are as disinterested in romance and as interested in Big Questions. EPIC RUINS, while much harder, is one local band that comes to mind. The Underground Railroad, Alan, and Urizen are three others. But the space in between is as vast as the distance from our little planet to Neptune, a destination to which Hance looks just left of “just to see you” on “The Hope,” a lazy-day, jangly slice of pocket grandeur. “You” definitely isn’t anyone’s “baby.” “Will a new age of reason enlighten all the West?” Hance sings in his ethereal but strong voice. “Will an anti-Christ come down and beat upon his chest? Will we run out of our money and have to go home / To the countries that we came from before we were born?”

Even without the anti-romantic, pro-philosophical lyrical bent, Psychosomatic Immortality would remain a singular achievement. Trippy and bucolic, ramblin’ yet somehow also serene, the product of the quintet of Hance, young brother Danny Hance, David Vaughn, Roby Scott, and Jody McCauley is masterful, perfect for both the stage and the headphones, for driving down the highway with the windows rolled down or shutting the curtains, reclining on the couch, and rollin’ a fatty. But is Psychosomatic Immortality for everyone? Eh. Probably not. Its overall melancholy feel, propensity for balladry, and, most significantly, Hance’s deep thoughts are apt to be alienating, especially in the land of “baby, baby, baby, baby.” (read more)