Sweden’s kings of Satanist-forward metal-cum-arena rock capture the sound of an entire musical genre rooted in a hyper-specific era of its development on their sixth record.
Imagine digging through the box of old vinyls your dad has stashed in his attic, lovingly bulwarked from time’s ravages by the folds of a dust cover. Imagine, as you flip, flip, flip past one record to the next, stopping on one emblazoned by an ornate osseous painting, a man’s bones topped with a mitre at the image’s center. “This,” you say to yourself, “is a telltale sign of 1980s progressive metal, if ever I saw such a thing.” You’re technically right and strictly wrong at the same time; the album is Skeletá, the band is Ghost, and the year is 2025.
Ghost, Sweden’s kings of Satanist-forward metal-cum-arena rock, capture the sound of an entire musical genre rooted in a hyper-specific era of its development on their sixth record, or “psalm,” per the band’s preferred stylization. There are those in the world folks like to refer to as “old souls”; Skeletá is the LP equivalent to that characterization, an anachronistically fresh piece of work that mimics the aspirant, rebellious spirit of wild, bygone years of bad hair, terrible politics, and even worse economic policies. The kicker is that Ghost have only been making music that rings of Satanic praise in the ears of the ignorant, and as cultural criticism of man’s prevailing fears over life and death to more curious listeners, for about 15 years. Their work wasn’t even seeded in the 1990s.
That’s the pleasure, of course, of Ghost, whose music foundationally reads as a product of bygone decades, as well as Skeletá. But Skeletá comes packaged with pleasures of its own too, specific to its placement in the band’s discography: As a later-stage release in their career, the psalm expresses a depth of introspection, not a trait typically associated with the macabre, fine-honed aesthetic Ghost have hung their hat on since October, 2010. (For clarity’s sake: Ghost formed in 2006, but played live for the first time at the Hammer of Doom Festival in Würzburg, Germany, on October 23rd, 2010.) The focal shift towards interior concerns may be a consequence of its recent change in leadership. Gone is Papa Emeritus IV, succeeded by the new guy, Papa V Perpetua; if Ghost’s sound mellows on Skeletá, it could be subsequent to Perpetua’s ascension. (Should none of this make sense to you, here are the broad strokes: Ghost frontman Tobias Forge periodically updates his stage personas. Papa Emeritus IV was his most recent; Perpetua is his latest.)
Skeletá’s soft, melodic heart is nonetheless encaged by a hard-rock edge, the trademark of Ghost’s profile from the early days of Opus Eponymous. Even at its most emotional, this psalm retains grit, a’la “Lachryma,” a song whose title literally translates to “tear” in Latin, and on whose chorus Forge belts, “I’m done crying / Over someone like you / I’m done crying / Hope you’re feeling it too now.” Frankly, on paper, the song reads like Hot Topic poetry, what with its vampirism references; the execution transforms its juvenility into maturity, aggressive, angsty, but backed by experience, plus a wicked riff to kick off the track. “Lachryma” is one of Skeletá’s highlights, a spot where the psalm strikes most as a product of Forge and his Nameless Ghouls–economical, vicious, and contemporary, but tinged by ‘80s rhapsody.
Joining it under that umbrella are songs like “Marks of the Evil One,” another contender for Skeletá’s best track, and “Missilia Amori,” sure to be a favorite among those nostalgia-dependent listeners for whom Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” and Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” are hymn-adjacent. “Missilia Amori” stomps, the ‘80s and ‘90s version of a bop. That embodied attitude contrasts powerfully against songs on Skeletá where Forge lets down his guard, and as much as we can all point to individual tracks as personal favorites on the record, it’s the contrast that gives the production purpose and character. “I know it hurts / Everybody goes away / You will too / I will too,” Forge lilts on “Excelsis,” closing out the psalm. It’s a blunt, painfully honest summary of mortality, the one grim, bummer fate we’re all tied to; effectively, it’s a summary of the album too, which the sentiment on “Excelsis” applies to writ large.
Even at its most metal, Skeletá is a work of self-confrontation and struggle. “Satanized,” the album’s lead single, sees Forge making pleas for salvation—with vigor and sharp, nasty musicianship, sure, but salvation all the same. “Save me from the monster that is eating me,” he begs. It’s tempting to interpret the monster as Catholicism, though Forge himself explains that the lyrics describe the sensation of being in love. (Naturally, the person falling in love is a monk, and he chalks up those feelings to good ol’ demonic possession. Ah, Christianity.) That level of vulnerability, coming from a band costumed in the fashion of Catholic clergy, comes as far more of a shock than any stereotypically heretical motifs any Bible-thumping spinster will blindly pull from Ghost’s songwriting. There’s a certain playfulness to the meaning, which contradicts “Satanized” at a surface level, and that contradiction between what is heard and what is said is as good a reason to celebrate Skeletá as it is to cheer Ghost’s continued development as a modern metal throwback.
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers the movies, beer, music, and being a dad for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours. He has contributed to Paste since 2013. You can find his collected work at “his personal blog.” He’s composed of roughly 65% craft beer.
