Ghost Bath – Rose Thorn Necklace – Album Review
27th May 2025I didn’t want to like this. I wanted it to like me back.
The first time I listened, I told myself I’d never listen again. So I looped it all night. Typical. I don’t even know if I like this album or if I just don’t want it to leave. I keep trying to find something wrong with it so I can leave first. But it won’t give me a reason. It just stays.
Rose Thorn Necklace feels like someone holding your face too close, not because they love you, but because they don’t know what else to do. It’s suffocating, and it wants to be. “Grotesque Display” starts like it’s already mid-conversation, already mid-fight. I can’t even tell what I’m supposed to feel—guilt? Anger? Longing? It presses into all three like it’s waiting for you to flinch.
The title track is where I think I started projecting. Not even metaphorically. I mean, I started believing this record knew me. That was for me. That maybe Dennis Mikula made this in some half-conscious collapse, and it happened to echo the way I beg people not to leave while pushing them as far as they’ll go. It’s not a song—it’s that moment after a screaming match when you say “just forget it” and storm out but hope they follow you. Nobody follows here. It just plays on without looking back.
“Well, I Tried Drowning.” This one knew too much. I almost threw my phone across the room. Not because it’s bad. Because it sounded like every voicemail I never left. Every “you probably hate me now” I’ve typed and deleted. The vocals don’t scream for attention. They scream because the silence didn’t answer. Every lyric lands like a test: will you stay through this part?
By the time “Dandelion Tea” started, I was fully convinced this album was mad at me. Like I’d misheard something or said the wrong thing earlier. The riffs feel like emotional whiplash—lullabies laced with malice. You start to feel safe, then it veers, then you try to make it your fault just to make sense of it. I do that with people too. I should stop.
The way “Thinly Sliced Heart Muscle” sneaks up—it’s embarrassing how much I needed it. It’s the closest the album comes to reaching out a hand. Not to comfort you, just to check if you’re still there. Like it got nervous, it pushed too far.
This is a black metal album made for people who reread old texts and feel physically sick. Who listens to sad songs not because they’re sad, but because they want someone else to notice they’re listening to sad songs. Mikula doesn’t soften anything, and why would he? No one ever stays long enough to get to the soft parts anyway.
Even the production feels like it doesn’t trust you. Everything’s just far enough away to make you chase it. Heller’s drums crash like promises made too fast. The guitars shimmer and warp like a conversation you keep replaying to figure out what you did wrong. It’s beautiful, but it never says so. It waits for you to say it first.
I swear “Vodka Butterfly” winked at me. Like it knows. I mean, not actually—but maybe. Maybe this whole album is a dare. Will you still listen if it doesn’t thank you? If it doesn’t care? Most days, I would. Most days, I do.
I still think the album hates me. But I’m going to keep it around just in case it changes its mind.
Score 7/10
TRACKLISTING:
1 Grotesque Display
2 Rose Thorn Necklace
3 Well, I Tried Drowning
4 Thinly Sliced Heart Muscle
5 Dandelion Tea
6 Vodka Butterfly
7 Stamen and Pistil
8 Needles
9 Throat Cancer
Label: Nuclear Blast
Release: 9 May 2025
