I’ll never expect anything in particular from a group following the death of one of its members, but I do find the ‘repackage into a different band’ option, also known as the Joy Division–New Order route, to be one of the most respectful, especially when you consider nobody has to do it. Hip hop group Injury Reserve released one album following the passing of Stepa J. Groggs, 2021’s By the Time I Get to Phoenix, which contained enough of Groggs’ voice to be classified as Injury Reserve. The surviving members have since retired the Injury Reserve name, but new duo By Storm, comprising emcee/producer Nathaniel Ritchie – a.k.a. Ritchie with a T, a.k.a. RiTchie – and producer Parker Corey, has released its debut record, entitled My Ghosts Go Ghost.

My Ghosts Go Ghost – and By Storm in general – is less sequel, more response. Where By the Time I Get to Phoenix considered existentiality ambiguous and abstract, its successor agrees, but instead of producing something comparable, it takes different directions to confirm its agreeance. The album is experimental in more of a directly musical way, as opposed to Phoenix’s stressing of glitchy electronics. I wouldn’t say its direction is better or worse; it’s its own fish, capturing the complexity of human emotions in its own, distinct way. The album doesn’t turn its nose at glitch or studio-heavy frivolity, but zooming in on messy humanism, it prefers to remain either analogue or analogue-sounding whilst allowing for electronic shit to tag along or make the production distinct.

The songs are about – or at least contain heavy suggestions of – being okay with a lack of resolution and dancing forward even if reflection is unavoidable, again nodding its head toward Phoenix’s abstract assessment of loss. It is about pushing yourself, musically and mentally, the definition of hardcore. Phoenix is one of the best examples of artistic perseverance I’ve ever heard, and My Ghosts Go Ghost isn’t too far behind. These guys have become masters of the surprise tonal shift, suddenly showing weakness, making us all cry, the jerks. The erratic growth of Dead Weight – mechanical rhythms that get swifter than Taylor – strangely embrace Ritchie’s strikingly sad lyrics on his inability to shake past emotions he thought would’ve been dislodged by now. His voice becomes chillingly intimate on Zig Zag, reminiscing days of enviable recklessness, a bittersweetness-upon-grief – “young man had more speed and agility than ever before / he was jumping them hurdles and sneaking past tolls”. On Grapefruit, you’re literally listening to a man melancholically rant with some interjections of humour, histrionically building to the line “I look down and all I see is grapefruit”. These twists can come in particularly surprising packages; somehow Ritchie’s “hey there, your favourite rapper at your door now”, reintroduction on In My Town, is explosive a gut-punch as his reminiscences, such as the incredible final eulogy of GGG, which, holy shit, ends so suddenly.

Of course, these bursts of expression are highlighted just as well by music alone. The introduction of Double Trio 2 sounds like a magic trumpet being blown, repeatedly so that the right note can be hit to produce the utopian symphony that eventualises; a harmonic, tearful, life-affirming memory put to sound. I’m trying to be picturesque; God knows these guys are.

Best tracks – Dead Weight – In My Town – Double Trio 2.

Rating – 8.5 out of 10