Holy Ghost

Tea pairing: White tea with milk and honey

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There must be something in the water in Philadelphia as it is home to numerous well-known and beloved emo and punk bands like The Menzingers, Tigers Jaw, Title Fight, The Wonder Years, The Dead Milkmen, and the subject of this review today; Modern Baseball.

Seen as one of the most popular modern emo acts today, Modern Baseball maintained a pretty large fanbase leading up to their sudden hiatus in 2017 after just six years of playing together. While it is unknown if the group will ever come back together, it’s their albums that live on for countless fans.

As short lived as they might have been, Modern Baseball managed to blend personal lyrics with catchy three chord pop punk to make razor sharp emo anthems all the while staying true to their fans, and that certainly stands for the last release, Holy Ghost.

Holy Ghost sees Modern Baseball singers Brendan Lukens and Jake Ewald sift through feelings of loss, loneliness, and heartbreak, but what sets this album apart from others with similar themes is the ferocity in both the lyricism and cacophony of guitars and drums.

For the most part, Modern Baseball is known for a rather diverse range in sounds, ranging from straight emo and pop punk, to indie rock, and folk rock. While still clinging closely to their emo and punk roots, Modern Baseball have also felt comfortable with experimenting.

Holy Ghost is a pop punk/emo record from start to finish, and that is especially obvious with tracks like the exuberant “Wedding Singer” and “Mass” that provide a lighter side to an album that can feel bleak at times.

With an album as lively and powerful as Holy Ghost, it only makes the groups seeming dissolution a harder pill to swallow. After cancelling their Australian tour in the fall of 2015, Brendan Lukens checked himself into rehab where he was diagnosed with manic depression and alcoholism alongside other struggles, and from then on the band has been on an “indefinite hiatus.”

On “Just Another Face” Lukens sings “I’m a waste of rock and grass” and because of the struggles they had been facing it is somewhat clearer they were not in the best place during the writing process of the album. As abrupt as it was, the group’s cancelling their tour and then their hiatus was obviously done with care and respect.

MoBo, as they are lovingly referred to by their fans, have always been close to their audiences, with a famous example being when Lukens asked the audience in Austin what they had for breakfast. It is something as pointless and silly as that speaks volumes for a band and how they see their fans.

Their love can also be tracked down to their honesty where they have been noted to look as if they just came from class on campus and decided to sing about what happened to them that day. But on Holy Ghost, they note that even a band as image-free and unabashedly un-corporate that they sometimes have to put on a kind of act to make a point. On “Note To Self” Jake Ewald sings “The glare from our stupid, spineless words just whining, every fucking day/what do I really want to say?”

And it is here where it is important to note the inward anxieties that band had faced in their run, where at oftentimes these stresses and frustrations would be leveled at each other. Having the album be split with six tracks being led by Ewald and five by Lukens highlights a group that at times may be on the edge of falling apart, but with the ability to pull it together for the fans.

As with many fourth wave emo acts, MoBo has since taken a strong stance on mental health awareness along with The Hotelier, and The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. This musical community of awareness has given countless people who are struggling and who have struggled a home and safe place, and there is honestly little more a band could do than to advocate for their fans in today’s crazy and unhinged world.

It has been four years since Modern Baseball has been an active band and five years since the release of Holy Ghost, and while it would be great for them to return it is best for them to do so, if they choose, to do it in their time. For a band so dedicated to their fans, it is the least we can do other than to blast their third LP on repeat.