Ghostnail – “Do You Believe?” DEMO (2005)

Independent Release

Review by Tony Cannella

The Swedish band Ghostnail obviously draw inspiration from horror movies and scary themes as you could probably surmise by looking at their song titles and the names of the individual band members. They have released two 5-song demos with their first “Do You Believe?” seeing the light-of-day (or is it dark-of-night?) way back in 2005.This is the one I will focus on now. The style of music on “Do You Believe?” is heavy, dark and sinister with powerful consistent riffs and just plain spooky. The opening track “Ghosts” is a good way to begin things but it is the next track “Zombies” that really got my attention. The next track “Cold Dead Body” is slow, deliberate and sees the band really making use of their eerie qualities on this one.The keyboards are put to good use on this one and adds to the overall foreboding atmosphere that is displayed here. This is another highlight. The next track “Do You Believe” speeds up the tempo a bit and shows that Ghostnail can be diverse as well and not just doomy sounding. The final track “Shadow” is a good way to end things on a great melodic note. In fact, all of the songs demonstrate a good melodic quality and the vocals of Erica (aka Faerie Ghost Mother) are well done and crystal clear sounding. The marriage of horror and metal is not a new concept, the two are obviously made for one another and Ghostnail does a great job in merging the two. Of course, it is a fine line and you don’t want the horror aspect to over shadow the music and Ghostnail does not allow that to happen. A very cool debut demo from this interesting Swedish band.