Written by: Alex Green

If Charles Dickens was right and ideas are like ghosts in that they must be spoken to in order to explain themselves, then it seems Chris Gennone has been having a lot of conversations lately.

The New Jersey musician’s new album The Ghosts Are Coming Home is a rich and textured affair, filled with endless musical ideas. Comprised of scraping ballads, rootsy rockers, and low-fi soul, Gennone and his band The Nones more than deliver on the promise of their debut album Living In Fear.

One of the great listens of the year, with this record Gennone has crafted a stirring song-cycle that’s redolent with musical finesse and real indie rock smarts.

The follow-up to the album’s first single “The Long Game,” the title track’s atmospheric and layered production builds to a percussive and moving crescendo that’s quite easily the most satisfying forty-five seconds of this waning summer. Gennone’s delivery is doleful and contemplative, but in those fiery last forty five, he howls into hope and the effect is utterly spellbinding.

“This is the oldest song on the record,” Gennone tells SEM. “I wrote it while I was recording Living in Fear, but it’s gone through a variety of different arrangements. The vibe just didn’t really fit with the rest of the songs and it felt like a good direction to go in for the next album. It’s probably one of the most visual songs I’ve written. I was driving in my car and the lyrics and title came really fast, all at once. I had to pull over and put it in my phone. I had this overwhelming feeling at that moment in my life, that the chickens had come to roost. The ghosts are coming home.”