Adam Perry is a man at the crossroads. As the primary writer for Athens, GA-based space-rock band Ghost Owl, the characters that weave in and out of their debut full-length, Say Goodbye To Finland, are brought to life through the prism of his own self-discovery, struggle, restlessness and utlimate peace and the band’s prog-pop layers of driving syncopation and layered beauty. Born from the ashes of that city’s beloved jam-band scene (and equally beloved jam-band Perpetual Groove), Ghost Owl’s release is on to the next millennium, taking years of drawn out musical improvising – played to neophyte, Johnny-come-lately Phish fans – and distilling the best parts into tight, potent punches of dynamic emotion, all the while never pandering with maudlin sentiments or overwrought “all-together-now” anthemic schlock.

But anthemic content is aplenty here, although this isn’t your father’s U2, who are an influence here but not overtly so. Guitarist Matthew McDonald plays smartly, reducing the sum of his influences into a modern-day template of his own making, incorporating guitar synth layers and arpeggiated textures to balance against and syncopate in lock-step with Adam Perry’s intelligent traditional bass/bass synth mashup and percolating keyboard contributions. The focused delivery of drummer Albert Suttle is also the heartbeat pulse that lifts the whole album up toward the heavens (much like original Clash drummer Topper Headon was, retrospectively, irreplaceable for the same ability) while retaining the humanity reflected in Perry’s ruminative words.

Which is where the listener finds singer Adam Perry at that proverbial crossroad. This is evidenced in his personal relationships – “I see the war on your face.. I feel the end in your embrace” he worries in the album’s lyrical opener, “Eleven.” “You won’t,” he optimistically pleads. In “Idiot Kid” he watches the effects of societal degradation of those around him and rallies the new kids on the block – “American Dreams are fading/Kick down the walls of your city tonight.” The downside of that revolution becomes apparent in “Sky Yellow,” as he wearily addresses a recipient of his disappointment, “Hurt so many, why’d you give it a try/Cut laced, bitter the taste, you know why.” The promise of youth seems lost if he can’t crystallize the message to be more potent than the latest scene drug, it seems.

Realizing he has outgrown the pants he’s worn for so long, Perry cooly claims “Baby, I don’t belong/I see no way to” in “Vela 500,” as though he has owned the confidence of that conclusion his whole life. A synthesized, angelic choir backlights his self-discovery. Triumphant in his human victory and confident of his path onward he reassures his addressee, “We’ll be ok.. ‘Cause we are one.” But Perry’s existential longing leads beyond his human interactions and it sets up the satisfying resolve of the album’s second half.

As he ponders the transition to spiritual awakening in “Crooked Youth” – a warship-sized mammoth of thick synth chords sailing into the pitch, black night – he laments, “Everything is all and it’s gone/Take your broken eye make you cry/It’s insane, makes ya sin/crooked youth.” In the midst of this existential purgatory, Perry offers his own genuine rock and roll salvation, claiming “Heart sets fire, I feel like I wanna… for your sons and your daughters.”

Redemption overcomes him swiftly, though, as he implores, “Turn the music on… It won’t be long ’til/All love fades” in a Mute Math-like call to arms to purge his and his listener’s mixed emotions (“Phantom Heart”). “Home, be nothin’ but a foreign light” he concludes in “Clouds Will Lift” before he fully embraces the beauty of his transcendence in the Pink Floyd “Eclipse”-esque summation, “Sun Will Shine.” “Breathe in, breathe out/The sun will shine again” he urges, at once exhilarated and at peace, as if he has finally realized that it’ll be ok; ’cause we are one.

– Ryan Sambrook