Ghost Bath - Rose Thorn Necklace

This wasn’t supposed to be published.

Too personal. Too dramatic. Too much serotonin and poor impulse control.

But here we are.

 

This started as a 5/5 review.

Then spiralled into a journal entry.

Then took a sharp left into dopamine delusion and somehow crashed into an identity crisis.

 

I thought I’d ruined the album for myself.

Turns out? I didn’t.

Turns out this is still a keeper.

The music outlasted the mess.

"Nausea, Depression, Fear, and Confusion”.

That's the album's official emotional aim, straight from the source.

And look—confusion definitely showed up.

 

I don’t know what the actual hell is wrong with my brain—

but somehow, I still fell in love.

Truly. Immediately. Stupidly.

 

There was something about this album—

the pacing, the distortion, the melody behind the madness—

that hit me like memory.

 

Like falling through the floor of your own chest—

and loving the drop.

I don’t remember the last time music caught me like this.

Not like a hook.

Like a pulse.

It starts with Grotesque Display. A soft, aching piano melody dressed in synth fog.

It doesn’t ask anything of you.

It just reaches.

The rest of the album folds in like a fever dream.

 

Well, I Tried Drowning—raspy. brutal. gurgling like lungs filled with glass.

But the synth. The gallop. The release.

 

Thinly Sliced Heart Muscle—soft again. Like breath.

Instrumental. Floating.

 

Dandelion Tea—Builds slow. Gets nasty.

And then soars.

 

Vodka Butterfly—the dance track for the damned.

Piano and growls. Twirling into oblivion.

The grin through tears kind of track.

The one you want to fall apart to, on purpose.

And it keeps going.

 

Stamen and Pistil—a storm.

Needles—a haunt.

Throat Cancer—a ruin.

 

I played it.

And played it.

And played it.

Until I stopped.

I didn’t stop listening because the music stopped being good.

But I overplayed it—in every sense of the word.

Started turning reverb into revelation.

Assigned meaning. Made metaphors. Got emotional.

 

A grown woman, brought to her knees

by blast beats and a stranger with soft dark eyes.

It’s fine. I’ve had worse ideas.

(But not many.)

 

In my spiralling little mind? A full novella. Chapters. Symbolism. Cringe.

Did I create an entire subplot based on an interaction best left unmentioned?

Yes.

Was it cinematic? Tragically romantic? Possibly poetic?

Also yes.

Was it real? 

Let’s not dwell on that.

Safe to say—I made a fool of myself.

But at least I was funny.

 

The album didn’t ask to be part of my nervous breakdown, but here we are.

I didn’t hear the music anymore.

I heard myself—spiralling, projecting, romanticising,

like the main character in a very niche indie film that no one asked for.

So I stopped listening.

I shelved it.

Tried to forget it.

At one point, in a moment of peak emotional absurdity, Kelly Clarkson slipped into my playlist.

Because apparently, that was the mood.

I laughed so hard I nearly cried again—because somehow, the lyrics felt unironically accurate.

And that’s when I knew the spiral had gone full pop tragic.

Nothing ruins an album faster than turning it into a diary entry you’re too ashamed to read back. 

 

I didn’t just shelve the album. I shut it out.

For a while, everything felt greyed out.

I was coming down from something—dopamine? delusion? Who knows.

All I know is the silence wasn’t peaceful. It was jagged. Loud. Stupid.

 

I kept checking things I shouldn’t have.

Replaying old thoughts. Rehearsing imaginary outcomes.

Doing that thing where you pretend it didn’t get to you, while very clearly falling apart in the background.

 

Life kept happening—quietly, insistently—but I wasn’t really in it.

I’d pressed pause on the album.

But honestly? It felt more like I’d muted part of myself.

Things got better. Quieter again. 

I got back to my feet. Because that's what I do.

You can't just fucking spiral without end. 

At some point you fix the crown and climb back on the horse.

(Or just lie dramatically across the saddle until you feel like a person again.)

 

And out of sheer spite—I hit play again.

Just once. Just to check.

To see if the sting was still there.

It wasn’t.

The cringe had cooled.

The associations had faded.

And underneath all that emotional debris?

The album still held.

Still bled.

Still bloomed.

Still fucking slapped.

It was never about the spiral. Or the moment.

It was always about the sound.

Turns out, I didn’t lose the music.

I just needed to reclaim it.

So no—this isn’t a review.

It’s a thank you.

To a record that stayed good, even when I didn’t.

To an album that saw me spiral into metaphorical oblivion, and waited me out.

Of all the wreckage, Rose Thorn Necklace is the only thing that made it out intact.

Me? I’m still brushing the emotional debris out of my teeth.

I love it.

I still love it.

And I’m done pretending otherwise.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go press play again.

Louder this time.

Because dramatic self-reclamation?

Still. On. Brand.