🔥 Resurrecting the Scene: Producer Emery and the Return of ARES aka Ghost In The Room

By: Florida Metal Scene News**

For those who remember the chaotic glory of the MySpace music era—the sweaty garage shows, the torn Vans, the flaming Hot Topic belts, and the thundering breakdowns—**Producer Emery** was already a name in motion. A driven audio engineer and musician deeply embedded in both California and Florida’s underground circuits, Emery was part of a wave of bands that fueled the scene during its most raw and authentic period.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Emery is preparing to reignite a flame that almost didn’t survive. The band? Now called **Ghost In The Room**. But longtime fans will know its original identity: **ARES**, an underground post-hardcore powerhouse that moved crowds and turned garages into chaos temples. From coast to coast, this band stitched itself together from musicians born out of two very different scenes—SoCal and the Florida Gulf Coast—but managed to carve a sound that felt right at home anywhere electricity surged.

ARES wasn’t just a band that opened for others—they **headlined**. One of their most iconic shows took place at *Night Life* in Sarasota, where they tore down the house with their signature sound. They shared stages with now-legendary bands, and they *led* them, too. At one point, **Adaliah**, a respected name in Florida’s heavy scene, was **opening for ARES**, not the other way around. Even more iconic? The two bands shared a practice space. That’s how connected it all was—tight-knit, gritty, and raw as hell.

> “We played with so many bands that blew up or influenced the scene in huge ways,” Emery recalls.

> “We shared a practice space with Adaliah for a while—they even opened for us at one point. Those days were something else. We weren’t just trying to make it. We were *living it*.”

And they weren’t alone.

ARES’s stage history includes names like **A Loss For Words**, **Palisades**, **Mercy Mercedes**, **Select Start**, **Mayday Parade**, **Prospect**, and even metal heavyweights like **Dying Fetus** and **A Plea for Purging**. These weren’t just support gigs—ARES *belonged* on those lineups. The band also became a staple of the **epic house show circuit** that fueled MySpace's golden era—before TikTok, before Spotify, when bands had to earn their clout one dive show at a time.

But just as the band’s buzz hit critical mass, 2009 delivered a gut punch that derailed everything. The studio where ARES had been recording their next big project—intended to be the most refined, professional body of work they’d ever put out—was broken into and **trashed**. Not only did the space suffer physical damage, but unreleased songs were lost, hard drives were destroyed, and morale took a massive hit.

> “It was devastating,” Emery says. “We were finally ready to push our sound to the next level—and then we just lost it. Not just the songs, but that *momentum.* It was like the rug got ripped out from under us.”

The band went quiet. Some members moved on, some stayed connected, and others disappeared from the spotlight. But like any story worth telling, this one didn’t end—it just went dormant.

Now, in 2025, that story continues under a new name: **Ghost In The Room**.

The new iteration isn’t a full reunion, but it *feels* like one. Core members **Devin** and **Emery** are leading the charge. Former bandmates are still involved behind the scenes, but some choose to remain unnamed for now. The focus isn’t about recreating the past—**it’s about finishing what never got a chance to begin.**

> “We’ve got unreleased tracks that still give me chills. I’m not letting them die on some hard drive,” Emery says.

> “This time around, I’m engineering the whole thing myself. We’re in control.”

And this time, there’s no label, no gatekeeper, no outside producer shaping the sound. Emery, now a seasoned engineer and credited recording technician (including work on the documentary *Give Me Liberty*), is handling it all: tracking, mixing, producing, and preserving the vibe that once made ARES such a force.

The vision for **Ghost In The Room** isn’t just a nostalgic trip—it’s rooted in *redemption*. It’s about delivering the music that fans never got to hear. Songs that were born from sweat, heartbreak, ambition, and distortion pedals—but were never given the chance to be heard due to circumstances beyond the band’s control.

Musically, the sound is evolving. The band is moving into **darker, more ambient territory**, blending haunting melodic layers with aggressive emotional weight. This isn’t a copy-paste reboot—it’s *a rebirth*.

Ties to other unreleased side projects, including **US GHOSTS**, will also shape the sonic DNA of Ghost In The Room’s new material. Emery is keen to pull from those old fragments, polish them with 2025 experience, and give them the platform they deserve.

> “This band has seen so many lives,” Emery says. “And if you were there back then—at the house shows, in the pit, or just sweating your ass off in a packed garage—you know this story. You lived it too.”

With the band quietly working behind the scenes, new music is planned for release within the year. No flashy marketing, no industry fluff—just real music, from real musicians, who never forgot the fire that started it all.

Ghost In The Room is a love letter to a lost era. But it’s also a battle cry for anyone who ever got left behind when the scene moved on.

Stay tuned. They’re not done yet.