MIKE GROGAN – Too Many Ghosts (Poacher Records PRCD105 & PRLP106)

Too Many GhostsMike Grogan’s musical background spans many genres – rock, punk and indie among them. He became a solo artist in 2011 and released his first album in 2012. Too Many Ghosts is released on 10th February 2017 and will be his third solo release. Mike has written all the songs on the album.

Right from the first track, ‘Show Them What Love Can Do’, the album emphasizes how positive life and humanity can be “we’ll be solid in our stand for freedom…we’ll stand side by side when people need us/we’ll be something you can shout about”. The song has a chorus you can easily picture an audience singing along with on a live performance. This sets the scene for the album and a number of the other tracks have equally strong choruses that should go down well live and lyrics that also reflects positively on the human spirit – notably ‘Let Me Feel the Rain’, ‘The Way’, ‘Big Ships’, ‘Heaven Is Here’.

The promotional video below is introduced by Mike Grogan personally, “ Too Many Ghosts was written as a reflection on the baggage we sometimes carry around with us and in reality that baggage can stop us appreciating what’s in front of us”. You can hear this in ‘Hallelujah’ with its message that the superficialities of life won’t help in the long run and that we should leave the world better than we found it. It is also to be heard in the lyrics from the title song “If I could make life better for you/tell me what, oh what, should I do” (‘Too Many Ghosts’)

My personal favourite, capturing the generosity of spirit in these songs, and all the more powerful for its simpler arrangement is ‘Wish You’ where the singer is looking to the future on behalf of another (an ex-lover? an old friend? It’s not clear, but it doesn’t matter – what counts is that he sings of what he wishes to happen for them) “Don’t be looking backwards…..I wish you the world/I wish you the stars/ I wish you the life that you deserve, I hope you go far”.

Mike Grogan will be touring solo across the country in 2017 – just voice and guitar – and in the summer will also be playing festivals with a full band.

Mike Wistow

Artist’s website: https://www.facebook.com/mikegroganmusic/


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