It is honestly a marvel that Ghost, the enigmatic heavy metal, glam rock entity helmed by Tobias Forge, continues not just to exist, but actively to create well into their second decade. Their journey has been a captivating saga, marked by shifting personas, elaborate costumes and a sprawling, deeply intriguing lore that could easily lead you down a rabbit hole. Each album cycle brings with it a transformation, a new chapter in their ever-evolving narrative.
Peeling back the ornate, moss-covered façade of Ghost’s theatrical spectacle—a tombstone etched with cryptic symbols representing their often misunderstood image, a band forever straddling the sacred and profane, lauded and lambasted for their genre-fluid sound and darkly alluring aesthetic—reveals a core of remarkable consistency. While the raw, swaggering power that powered earlier victories like Meliora appeared to fade, its edges softened by Impera‘s more flamboyant, even theatrical kitsch, Forge’s unwavering drive and sheer perseverance remained obvious.
Reflecting on Ghost’s trajectory since their 2006 inception in Sweden, one cannot help but marvel at Forge’s relentless drive. Year after year, amidst costume changes and evolving band line-ups, he remains the constant, the voice behind the ever-changing mask. It begs the question: is Forge one of the most hard-working artists in the industry? His output appears never-ending; even when he is not nurturing a grotesque garland of gathered sins for a new record, he and his band of nameless ghouls are either touring or expanding the band’s lore, leaving one to wonder if there is ever a moment for pause.
Recent interviews reveal the toll this unrelenting pace has had, with some fans questioning whether the band should have finished with the 2024 concert film, Rite Here Rite Now, which could have served as a suitable, cinematic curtain call. This film, a macabre mosaic of the sold-out spectacle at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, felt like a loving, expertly crafted ode to both the die-hard faithful and those just beginning to be drawn into Ghost’s shadowy embrace. So, with this backdrop of tireless work and perhaps a hint of weariness, the arrival of the sixth full-length Ghost record, Skeletá, naturally sparks curiosity. After the stylistic choices of Impera, what sonic landscape awaits us this time? Will it be a continuation of that era, or a return to the sound that captivated so many early on?
Ready for exhumation and consumption, Skeletá‘s ten raw tracks are encased in a dark anthracite aura, reeking of satanic glory, that cut as close to the bone as inhumanly possible. This offering marks the debut of the newly anti-christened Papa V Perpetua—though beneath the unholy vestments lies Forge, reborn. Where Impera chronicled the fall of empires, Skeletá delves into the harrowing thoughts of the innocent who suffer as a consequence. It is perhaps unsurprising that Forge has turned inward, focusing on personal introspection and the visceral spectrum of love, hate, hope and regret. While tracks like the early ‘Crucified’ and ‘If You Have Ghosts’, alongside the recent TikTok sensation ‘Mary On A Cross’, certainly touched upon these core human sentiments, the songs on Skeletá see Forge shedding some of the dramatic flair and campy attitude to deliver a more direct and impactful emotional resonance.
The first toll from Skeletá, ‘Peacefield’, resonates with a hopeful note, a bright dawn before the album inevitably slaloms into darker themes. The album version of this song cradles an ethereal children’s choir, embraced by a gleaming organ, akin to a traditional hymn, serving as a ghostly guide for a deceased person who is coming back to teach the living how to achieve rebirth. In the midst of turmoil and bloodshed, it talks about taking the dark seeds of experience and nurturing them into hope—a crucial lesson in these uncertain times—with lines like, “Child, take your dark memories / Like seeds, and plant them far from here / Sow them, feed them, through shine and rain / Your love will be born again.” The track then seamlessly transitions into pure 80s bliss, echoing the melancholic sensibilities of Alice Cooper while possessing the unvarnished drama of ABBA. The verses paint a vivid picture, like stepping into a dimly lit 80s music video, complete with swirling shadows and a hazy, dreamlike cinematography.
‘Cenotaph’, in stark contrast, rises as perhaps the most profound and fully realised disinterment of these inner sentiments. True to its name—a cold stone monument masquerading as a grave, yet hollow of any earthly remains—the track stands as a chillingly resonant symbol. It embodies the unsettling truth that the essence of the departed does not decompose within the confines of a buried corpse, but instead haunts the shadowy corridors of our consciousness. Lyrically, the track becomes a spectral vessel, freighted with the heavy silence of absence and the lingering echoes of lives now spectral. Forge’s repeated incantation, “Wherever I go / You’re always there / Riding next to me,” transforms into a morbid mantra, a desperate attempt to tether himself to the spectral presence of a lost loved one, their phantom form forever riding alongside him in the desolate landscape of grief.
Unfortunately, Forge’s delivery of these intensely felt vocal moments frequently feels like a missed burial, even with the rich lyrical cadaver unearthed throughout this album. Even though he can still produce soaring high notes, all dynamic complexity seems embalmed once he settles into a comfortable range on the record’s opener. It is a morbid shame, because we have seen him attain heights that could break the stained glass of an imposing cathedral with gospel zeal and plummet to unkempt, swaggering depths that make you wonder if he is the Devil incarnate and not just his earthly herald.
The most egregious example of this vocal flattening might just be ‘Satanized’, the very first single released from Skeletá‘s crypt. The track was initially conjured with a palpable sense of dread: pulsating basslines and sinister guitar notes that gradually festered into a wailing guitar solo, evoking the bloodcurdling cries of vampires signalling a fresh kill in the dead of night. Despite this bloodthirsty instrumental swagger, akin to something unearthed from the graveyards of Prequelle or Meliora, Forge’s vocals lie so flat, so lifeless, that what could have been a demonic dance floor anthem decays into a subpar, anaemic imitation of ‘Rats’.
On the topic of guitar work, what Ghost exhumes this time is a stark dichotomy of brilliance and banality, largely stemming from the prevalent rinse-and-repeat structure of verse–chorus–verse–raging guitar solo–chorus. While this formula has served them well in the past, and indeed finds purchase on this album, particularly on the record’s conspiracy-choked and biblically fractured track, ‘Marks of the Evil One’, which boasts a guitar lead that is both apocalyptic and euphoric, like the soundtrack to Revelation 6:16, the lead also swells into an unsettling surge of fingerpicking motifs as Forge belts out “There! There! / The marks are spreading everywhere / There! There! / Disciples of the evil one.”
However, beyond these stunning guitar necromancies, there are far too many instances on this record where the guitar solos feel like hollowed-out remains of past glories, a shell of Ghost themselves or the heavy metal spectres that have haunted their sound over the years. Take ‘Lachryma’, with riffs that sound like diluted ichor drained from Metallica’s Ride the Lightning, or even ‘Umbra’ with its blatant, almost grave-robbing worship of Black Sabbath.
While it is not suggested that the band is attempting to reanimate their golden age, the sense lingers that they are indeed trying to prove, in some spectral way, that their potency remains, even as they choose to pursue softer, less ambitious necromantic rituals, like Skeletá. Whether this will age as well as it should remains to be seen, especially given the band’s pronouncement in their Bandcamp linear notes that “2025 is poised to be GHOST’s busiest, most ambitious and outright biggest year to date.” Perhaps once the SKELETOUR commences its unholy procession, things will begin to stir with a more palpable excitement.
Words by Mishael Lee
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