Remember that scene in “Stand By Me” when Vern climbed into the treehouse all out of breath, bursting with excitement? He couldn’t wait to share his news. In his case, it was about the sighting of a dead body by his brother’s hoodlum posse.

But in my case, I can’t wait to tell you about the new CD from The Ghost of Paul Revere. Dead body. Ghost. See what I did there? The band has a CD-release show on Friday night.

In fact, I’m so excited that this is the only thing I’m writing about this week.

The Ghost of Paul Revere is Griffin Sherry on guitar, vocals and octave mandolin, Max Davix on banjo and vocals, Sean McCarthy on bass and vocals and Matt Young on harmonica.

“Believe” was recorded live, produced and mixed by Jonathan Wyman at his studio, The Halo. Adam Ayan at Gateway mastered it. Before you read any farther, might I suggest you head here – ghostofpaulrevere.bandcamp.com – and press play?

Man alive, do I ever like this album. They had me hook, line and sinker with the foot-stomping, hand-clapping a cappella opening tune “After Many Miles.” I had to stop what I was doing and focus solely on the music. I had to. I couldn’t respond to emails, work on this column, look over at the TV with the Olympics on or do any other work. I just had to sit and listen.

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And OK, I watched the snow fall. To observers I surely looked like a spaced-out flake wasting valuable time day-dreaming. But I owed it to “Believe” to give it my full attention. I even closed my eyes a few times. During “Hey Girl” I wanted to get up and dance around the room, slapping my thighs and playing air-banjo. Then during “Funeral” I wanted to float up against the stream of the falling snow and hover a few miles above the earth before riding a lightning bolt back down to solid ground. Such was the case the entire way through the album’s 11 songs.

I can state without hesitation that my favorite song at the moment is “San Antone.” The song starts off with gorgeous, slow harmonies, then it’s like someone shifted from first to third and is picking up speed on a downhill. “Let me be your hunger pains/coursing through those pretty veins/ let your heart not be estranged/let me be your hunger pains.” Matt Young sets his harmonica on fire and the song takes on a life of its own. I love it. So much.

I messaged Sherry to ask what we can expect at the big show. He immediately and graciously responded saying that they’ll be enlisting the help of many friends including The Stauble Singers, Kirk Underwood, When Particles Collide and the Longfellow String Quartet.

The show will kick off with acoustic tunes from Theodore Treehouse and will end with dancing to Four Legged Friend, who will close out the night.

If you can’t make it to the show, at the very least like the band on Facebook and head to Bull Moose and pick up a copy of “Believe.” You can thank me later. Better yet, thank the band.

The Ghost of Paul Revere. 9 p.m. Friday. Port City Music Hall, 504 Congress St., Portland. $10 in advance; $12 day of show; $20 preferred seating; 18-plus; portcitymusichall.com 

Aimsel Ponti can be contacted at 791-6455 or at:

aponti@pressherald.com


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