Local indie rockers Spirit Ghost are back with “Dungeon Crawler”, the group’s latest single off their upcoming 6-track EP Dark Magic. Set to release on October 16, the single is a departure from the electrified sound we’ve grown to expect from Spirit Ghost. The track is buoyed by a looping acoustic guitar, a simple, marching drumbeat, and the occasional chorus of “ba-ba-ba’s” that make it hard not to sing along. Alex Whitelaw, the group’s lead singer and songwriter, told AP that “Dungeon Crawler”’s unplugged sound represents an intentional new direction for the band: “the entire EP was written and recorded quickly, uses no electric guitars, and strips Spirit Ghost’s sound down to a more immediate and sparse collection of songs.” But it’s not just to the group’s new sound that Whitelaw wants to draw our attention.

“‘Dungeon Crawler’ is a song about the psychological toll of modern living”, Whitelaw explained, “feeling trapped in circumstances that make people increasingly exhausted, disposable and powerless.”  In spite of its central theme, the song is decidedly un-claustrophobic. Spirit Ghost pulled off a similar feat with tracks like “Mind Control” and “Rat Poison” off their last project Ordinary People, blending macabre lyrics with a frenzied, joyous sound. “Dungeon Crawler” reproduces the effect without all the fuzz. The dissonance between the track’s lyrical exploration of a rather bleak theme and its unsuppressable upbeat sound demands we listen up, not just to what the group has to say, but to how they say it. The listener wonders whether they are really crawling, or perhaps bouncing along with Spirit Ghost, through the dungeon.

Stream “Dungeon Crawler” below.