The cinematic Boston alt-rock duo weave tales of love, loss, and life into a stirring debut album out Friday, April 26 via Belhaven Records

OUT NOW: Listen to ‘The Ghost Archives’ on Spotify

New single ‘Cure For Everything’ set for Mother’s Day release

BOSTON, MA [April 26, 2024] – If the heart is a true gateway into the soul, then Arrows of Athena have extended a personal invitation. The cinematic Boston duo emerged earlier this month with fiery single “Reckless Heart,” a propulsive and attention-grabbing alternative banger that straddled the line between rock and pop. It provided an intriguing entry point to the project’s musical world, one that emerges in kaleidoscopic color and raw vulnerability on debut album The Ghost Archives, set for release on Friday, April 26 via their own Belhaven Records.

An album of escapism rooted in reality, The Ghost Archives is a painstakingly personal record for its main players – multi-instrumentalist and producer Scott Lerner and vocalist and lyricist Jac-Lyn Gibson – as the two musicians bonded over their respective loves, losses, and the daily peaks and valleys that define our modern lives.

Across the record’s 13 tracks are personal anecdotes and observations that reflect as highly relatable, as Gibson’s confessional and mindful lyricisms playfully glide over the sometimes glossy, sometimes gritty soundscapes from Lerner’s musical mind. Paired together, Arrows of Athena have cultivated a distinctive style of ‘90s-inspired electronic rock on their own terms, bridging usually disparate ends of the pop and alternative spectrum for an illuminated sound of big dance beats, heavy riffs, and melodic intensity. And it’s appropriate the project takes its moniker from a nod to female strength and wisdom.

“A lot of the themes on The Ghost Archives are about love and loss,” Lerner admits. “Both Jac-Lyn and I lost people close to us during the making of the album. I think that the lyrical content just moved in that direction. Each song reflects on a time in our life. Kind of like an archive of sorts. It just made sense to add ‘ghost’ to the title seeing that most of the album is about the loved ones we lost.”

Gibson lost both her mother and father within a short timeframe, as well as her brother-in-law who passed away at an early age. Holding her family bonds close to her, many of her lyrics explore the roles of loved ones. After the album’s release, the duo are set to release a video for new single “Cure For Everything,” a buoyant, sun-soaked synth song about Gibson’s daughter Gwen, around Mother’s Day.

“The themes are really a collection of moments in our lives that most people can relate to,” Gibson says. “Lyrically, I wanted to capture some really tough moments as well as some highlight reels. The album has songs about death, grief, love, heartache, internal struggles, siblings, marriage and being a teen in the ‘90s. It’s not all heartache and sadness though. I also write about the simpler days like growing up in the ‘90s, summers spent in my childhood home with my sisters, and the ups and downs of falling in love and becoming a mom.”

Gibson and Lerner are equally excited, nervous, eager, and proud as the record release draws near, as an effort two years in the making, that started as a pandemic project for two friends that reconnected after some time apart, finally sees the light of day.

“We put a ton into it and are very proud of The Ghost Archives,” notes Lerner. “It was definitely a labor of love.” Adds Gibson: “I am feeling everything, but also just taking it in stride.”

The pair have been sharing a musical vision since the early 2000s, when they both were in Boston rock band Pure Fiction. Lerner went on to play in indie stalwarts the Crushing Low, while Gibson relocated to New Jersey with her immediate family. But during the pandemic, Lerner began building a home studio, compiling demos that felt slightly outside his usual creative circles. Hearing that Gibson returned to Boston after a few years away, he reached out to see if she wanted to lay down some vocals on a new project.

“The music I was writing was different from the stuff I had written in the Crushing Low, so I wasn’t sure what to do with it, as I’m no singer,” Lerner says. “Jac-Lyn and I had just recently reconnected, so I sent her some of the demos I’d put together and I asked her if she would be into writing and playing together again.”

What emerged was The Ghost Archives, a stirring debut record of polished, magnetic compositions that flash a strobe-lit sound that’s unlike most of what is coming out of New England right now. Lerner was especially focused on crafting new sounds that were different from his past work, with an emphasis on more driving beats and basslines.

Opening track “Insanity” quickly showcases Arrows of Athena’s penchant for blending styles and sounds into a stirring sonic cocktail, where yearning synths dance alongside dirty bass and pounding drums and percussion. Last year’s debut single “Fade Away” serves a more ethereal sound for the duo, and “Life’s Just Weird” emerges as a sort of alt-rock power ballad.

Elsewhere on the record, “80s vs 90s” purrs with smart self-awareness, “Stargazing” leans more in a heavenly pop direction, “Second Chances” veers into post-punk and darkwave territory without ever losing its pop exterior, and the slightly aggressive “Downside” harnesses a frantic urgency underneath its neon exterior. The Ghost Archives concludes, appropriately enough, with a simple lullaby.

“The highlights on this album for me is just the fact that I did it,” Gibson says. “That I said yes to this project and kept pushing through all the moments of uncertainty, writer’s block, and the lack of confidence I was experiencing in the earlier sessions.”

The payoff is there. While both Lerner and Gibson are quick to rattle off their favorite songs and moments from the record, they share joy in each of the tracks, especially the aforementioned “Cure For Everything,” a song that represents the two in so many ways as they raise their own families and develop a new sense of appreciation for what they have at home.

“Oh, how I love ‘Cure For Everything,’” Gibson admits. “My daughter Gwen is my cure for everything. I sing about the day I found out I was having a little girl after two boys. I remember the day vividly and it will always be a special moment in my life that I love to reflect on. I start out singing about that day but it’s also just a testament to being a mom and how they really are the cure for everything.”

Beyond the lyrical messages, Arrows of Athena is also a testament to finding comfort in one’s self and those closest around you. Lerner says the project is not out to change the world, but it serves a significant purpose in allowing a creative urge to come to melodic fruition. And for Gibson, the band represents the re-ignition of a flame she thought went out long ago.

“It’s never too late for the moms and dads of the world to do something you love,” she says. “I thought my days of singing were over when I became a mom almost 18 years ago. My life was focused on my three kids and being available to them 100 percent. As they have gotten older, I have come to the realization that I can still do the things I love and be a great mother and wife.”

As with most things, it starts with the heart, and takes over from there.

‘The Ghost Archives’ album artwork:

Arrows of Athena deliver darkness into the light with ‘The Ghost Archives’

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