Voyager - Ghost Mile album review

Australia’s Voyager have never shied away from their poppier sensibilities, so it’s no surprise that their sixth release, Ghost Mile, is plastered with more melody than you can shake an eight-string at. The melodic tech quintet’s earlier material veered towards either anthemic or proggy elements, but by the time 2014’s V rolled around, the band had finely tuned their ability to meld the two together into one glorious whole. As a result, Ghost Mile walks the line between richly textured polyrhythms, dextrous riffs and synth-led choruses like a funambulist on a high wire. Disconnected provides the album’s meatiest moment butLifeline offers up mindbending, fret-wrangling guitarwork with a blinding singalong moment and Ascension combines Periphery-esquedjent grooves with pristine atmospherics. Immediacy is Voyager’s bag and they do it well. Despite a lot going on, these tracks never feel cluttered. Rather, the title track and Misery Is Only Company sound expansive, and these dynamic, ephemeral riffs are like a jolt of colour splashed across white space.