Delayed by the pandemic, Ghost‘s 2022 album, Impera, was put on hold from its scheduled 2020 release date, making some of its dark-days narrative and talk of modern-day emperors seem a bit expired since the LP was supposed to arrive shortly after the U.S. presidential election that year. Two years into the Biden administration, Impera was more “Remember that nightmare from 2016 to 2020?” than the intended “Let’s start healing with the new guy.”
How soon things change. In 2025, Donald Trump is president again, and global relations are more fragile than when he left after his first term. Ghost makes the universal fears and concerns of their sixth album, Skeleta, sound like commentary on the times; the costumed Swedish progressive hard-rockers have a way of making centuries-old predicaments (plagues, empires) appear as contemporary challenges.
The demons are seemingly more personal on Skeleta as bandleader Tobias Forge (recording under the alias Papa V Perpetua this time) excavates his soul. “There is something inside me, and they don’t know if there is a cure,” he sings in the glam-meets-goth “Satanized. “A demonic possession unlike any before.” The ills of the world, perhaps? Subtlety has never been one of Ghost’s calling cards; the inner turmoil could amount to larger concerns.
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But most of the songs are about love and hurt on a more personal level. The inward gazing does give the music on Skeleta a shade of brooding theatricality. As usual, this is straight from the Ghost playbook. The opening “Peacefield” begins with a chorus of heavenly voices before the group works toward ’80s arena-rock glory for the next five-plus minutes. And the power ballads, more prevalent on Impera, remain a growing interest for Forge.
So do the 1980s in general. The stabbing synths, piercing guitar solos and skyscraping vocals all come from the era of big hooks and even bigger hair. (Look no further than “Missilia Amori” and its talk of “love rockets” for proof.) And like so much hard-rock music from the era, Skeleta is ultimately an empty venture. Forge may still be committed to the material, but fitting for its name, Ghost as a band is a shell of the progressive metal group it was 15 years ago. Like Forge’s latest stage persona, Skeleta is a mere dilution of what came before.
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Once again, reports of the genre’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
