Running along
My breath and blood
It’s never enough
I’m bleeding
New York’s Ghost Cop are artisans of unease. The duo of Lucy Swope and Sean Dack deal in electronics that evoke both the smoke-filled basements of downtown clubs and the flicker of late-night television. Their second album, TROUBLE, sharpens the pair’s fascination with B-movies, pulp literature, and a darker musical lineage stretching from post-punk to synth pop. The result is an atmosphere equal parts sardonic and sincere, one that thrives on excess while constantly aware of its own artifice.
The Girl With The Terminal Stare, unveiled alongside a video that revels in horror pastiche, offers a direct channel into the group’s obsessions. A song title plucked from Chiller Theater establishes the intent: this is a band who take pop detritus and resurrect it with mischief.
Musically, the track is built on a thumping synth bassline and percussion designed for the midnight floor. Swope’s voice, ethereal yet resigned, carries the text with both theatrical flair and a tired candour. The lyrics reveal exhaustion, yearning, and confrontation with mortality. Vulnerability collides with menace; desire bleeds into sin. Repeated references to fatigue and running underline futility, while imagery of warnings, heat, and blood turns the song into an allegory of inner turmoil and compulsion. In a few minutes, the piece captures the endless cycle of want and weariness.
The video, directed with a wink to cinema’s macabre cult classic, stages a mad scientist reviving two corpses to serve as backup dancers. Predictably, the dead revolt. One thinks of Re-Animator, Dr. Caligari (1989), The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and of course Thriller, but the treatment is less homage than knowing camp. It laughs at itself while winking at the audience.
Ghost Cop’s enthusiasm for movement extends beyond metaphor. “We’d wanted to work with choreographer Neil Schwartz for ages, and with the dance-ready beat and 80s influences, this song felt like the perfect fit,” says the band. That collaboration enlists dancers Jordan Kaya and Roy Garzon, whose sharp lines and reckless spins electrify the screen. Their physicality matches the track’s mixture of menace and release, turning choreography into commentary.
Ghost Cop understand that excess is America’s native tongue, and their work is a reminder that even in camp…there is consequence.
Watch The Girl With The Terminal Stare below:
Ghost Cop’s appeal lies in this balancing act: camp spectacle paired with dead-serious execution. They acknowledge the absurdity of horror clichés while reveling in their power. The music ranges across dystopian floor fillers, cinematic ballads, and vocoder lullabies, yet remains anchored by the duo’s insistence that pop can hold both parody and profundity. As they prepare for a run of Midwest dates, including a stop at Chicago’s Cold Waves Festival on September 25, the project stands as both artifact and critique of a culture addicted to spectacle.
Listen to The Girl With The Terminal Stare below and order TROUBLE here.
Catch Ghost Cop live this spooky season:
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Sep 25 Bottom Lounge Chicago, IL (Cold Waves Festival)
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Sep 28 Small’s Hamtramck, MI
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Oct 31 Chess Club Austin, TX
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