Album Review: The Ghost Inside - Get What You Give

There's a gun being cocked and fired in the opening track, This Is What I Know About Sacrifice – that just about sets the bar for how 'tough' Get What You Give, the third album from LA's The Ghost Inside, really is. It's the band's first release on Epitaph, the culmination of endless touring with the likes of Parkway Drive, A Day To Remember and Bleeding Through, that has seen them on a steady rise that has, for some reason, not been enough to insure the band against tumultuous line-up changes.

This time around finds them losing drummer KC Stockbridge, a position that's been filled by Andrew Tkaczyk, former drummer/songwriter for fellow metalcore act For The Fallen Dreams. Bringing a fresh perspective on songwriting to the table on his first TGI recording, Tkaczyk's addition (coupled with the use of A Day To Remember's Jeremy McKinnon as producer) seems to have successfully enabled the band to get heavier still – a desire made explicit by guitarist/songwriter Aaron Brooks – while retaining some semblance of a song amongst the relentless brutality of the chug, chug, chug. The balance is struck best on the likes of Face Value, White Light, The Great Unknown and album closer Test The Limits.

With the main lyrical fodder coming from the trials and tribulations of touring life and band commitments (the darker, oft-forgotten side of the rock dream), frontman Jonathan Vigil employs more clean vocals on Get What You Give than on previous releases, but in the likes of lead single Engine 45, Thirty Three and Face Value, this complements the songs perfectly.