Poison Ivy And The People Divulge Existential Confessions on Robot Ghost EP
Review by: Jim Byron, Writer @altindielegends
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner/Editor @melodicnoisemedia
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On their new EP, Robot Ghost, Poison Ivy And The People divulge existential confessions across three songs that crash through sonic boundaries and narrative conventions. Unruly yet artful, the band’s latest collection channels punk invention, dynamic lyricism, and a deep urge for connection. The album is a raw transmission from five musicians determined to make vulnerability a public ritual. The band invites you to meet them at the crossroad and threshold of melodrama, poetry, and the therapeutic touch of a storyteller who displays an indomitable urge to express themself in the most utterly raw, yet elegantly composed way possible.
Go listen to the E.P. now if you don’t want spoilers, because here they come. We’re about to explore the inner ache of an artist hellbent on critiquing the social status quo in a style that’s both deeply personal and seemingly universal to the human experience.
Charleigh “Ivy” Wolf stands at the heart of this expanse, their guitar and vocals steeped in honesty and urgency. Next to them, Josh Wirtanen’s guitar slashes and wanders, conjuring both the rhythmic force of classic punk and uncanny, experimental ghosts, a nod to his work in his side-project Fall of the Argonaut. Zaq Baker paints the tumult with brooding keys, alternating between subterranean pulses and soaring, cinematic flourishes. Mitch Benson lends grounding with a bass that thumps like a second heart, while Zeke Cowann drives everything forward on relentless, precision-drummed rhythms.
Robot Ghost avoids traditional song-by-song storytelling. Instead, it spills out in moments, a torrent of questions, anxieties, humor, and raw survival, the emotional autobiography of a character facing collapse within and without. “Emotions live inside my shell… ready to explode at any moment,” Ivy admits at the title track of the record’s threshold, setting the tone for the anxious journey ahead.
Throughout the collection, existential weariness mingles with flashes of rebellion; the band holds space for both despair and resistance. In “Game”, the lyrics spiral, “It’s so strange it’s a crisis driving me insane why does anyone like this?... Is it still a game when you’re alone? Is it still a game when you’re disowned?” Each repetition probes the rules of existence, turning the everyday grind into a philosophical challenge. Wirtanen’s guitar and Baker’s keys dart in and out of sync, the band playing as if daring pain itself to show its hand.
“Can’t Wait 2 Sleep” turns exhaustion honest and almost gentle, its melody folded over soft keys and tightly wound drums. Ivy confesses, “I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight / I just woke up and nothing feels right maybe I’ll feel better in another life.” What reads as resignation becomes a strangely communal solace. Each band member’s part intertwines, lifting the weary refrain into a beautiful, if haunting, lullaby.
No song sounds the same; rhythm, harmony, and groove swerve unexpectedly. The analog warmth in the production magnifies the EP’s asymmetrical spirit, with each musician goading the other into ever sharper outbursts or tender retreats. The group’s chemistry makes contradiction feel natural, if a little dangerous, but always compelling.
Robot Ghost‘s confessions reach far beyond personal malaise, echoing a generation’s broader reckoning. On the title track, Ivy voices climate anxiety directly:“Climate anxiety eating us up / Our efforts are wild and sincere / We gotta interfere, this shit won’t just disappear / It’s the same fucking thing year after year.” The band’s urgency morphs into action to resist numbness with sound and solidarity. Ivy’s voice, at once shattering and luminous, stitches performer to listener. Every confession aired becomes a reciprocal act of healing.
Robot Ghost rejects tidy conclusions. The EP flickers with hope but refuses to extinguish discomfort; listeners move alongside the protagonist, drifting from dissociation and exhaustion to flashes of hope and rebellion. Each song becomes a new confession, a small act of resistance against self-destruction and collective despair. It challenges the listener to look both inward and outward and fights existential dread’s despair with an anti-conformist rebel’s hope by way of apt lyrics and fiery, passionate melody. For anyone seeking alternative rock’s next wave of true innovation and organic evolution, it’s an absolute must-listen.
Wolf, Wirtanen, Baker, Benson, and Cowann each contribute distinctly, forging each jagged chord and piercing lyric into a shared reckoning. For those trapped in the world’s endless “game,” hungry for honest rest, or drifting like “a robot and a ghost,” this EP offers no final answers. Instead, it invites listeners to share the confession: to ache, to connect, to aspire, and to endure with a spark that refuses darkness.
Recently Poison Ivy And The People’s had a release show for their single, He/Him, an infectiously catchy outtake from the Robot Ghost E.P. recording sessions. A humorous jab at cisnormativity through the lens of disappointment an absent lover, one who doesn’t show up for the protagonist, with lines like, “Lookin’ at the door all night hopin’ you’ll walk through / But there’s at least four other guys here who look like you.” The He/Him single came out Wednesday, August 13th 2025. The celebration was held at Mortimer’s bar in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It happened during their shared monthlong residency each Wednesday of August with frontperson Charleigh Wolf and guitarist Josh Wirtanen’s other band, A Sunken Ship Irony alternating with Poison Ivy And The People as headliners.
Catch Poison Ivy And The People’s Josh and Ivy in their other act, A Sunken Ship Irony at Feral Pixie Dream House on Friday, October 4th, show from 5 PM to 10 PM
Follow Poison Ivy And The People and A Sunken Ship Irony on Instagram at @poisonivytheband and @asunkenshipirony to stay up to date on what they’re up to next. Also, find their music on Bandcamp and where you can stream music.
