Ghost 'Skeletá' album review: The Swedish metal band releases Ghost: The musical

The famously anti-papal, Satanic 'metal band', Ghost, has grown their fanbase with every album they've released, creating a quasi-religious following all of their own. With the grand theatrics and an ever-growing lore, Ghost's albums and concerts are full of smells, spells and pagentry and their music has become equally outlandish with every album cycle. As a Grammy award-winning band, they are perhaps more successful than they have a rite (sic) to be in the metal world, given that they've never really been a metal band.

Ghost seemed to have evolved from their noticeably heavier debut, to being rooted in a kind of musical purgatory: wanting to be a spitting blood, metal band, but stuck for eternity as a pop-rock outfit with cool costumes and gnarly guitar riffs: But that is their unique selling point! After all, they were never going to be Sodom or Cannibal Corpse. Frankly, the only thing metal about 'Skeletá' is the drop D's, occult imagery and the fables around the various Papas (the latest being Papa V) and the ever-growing mythology of The Clergy - AKA the top secret group that controls Ghost.

There's a certain irony to the actual Pope dying in the same week that Ghost release a new record. In some alternate universe, The Clergy have assembled a Conclave to vote Papa V Perpetua as the new Pope.*

Tobias' influences were hinted at since day one, but on 2022's 'Impera' with tracks like 'Spillways' which contained a Toto-style piano hook, they started to come to the fore - here they are writ large. It's no wonder that a good portion of his disciples are the 70s and 80s AOR rock crowd.

A heavy-duty injection of melody is paramount in the new cycle for Ghost, especially with Papa V:  a purple bat-winged Pope, with a glittery mask leading the charge. It backs up the uber flamboyant and melodic album, Skeletá', which overflows with instantly singable pop-rock melodies. Perhaps it also maintains some kind of continuity, as the new Papa is the twin of the retired Frater Imperato. (Yes, it's all gone a bit Eastenders, we know.)

In places, 'Skeletá' is almost like a concept album on the scale of prog-rock supreomo Ayreon and channelling the metal, goth and heavy rock 'Love Metal' of H.I.M. 'Peacefields' has a choral opening before a late 80s Alice Cooper guitar riff underpins themes of faith, belief and love. 'Guilding Lights' is just crying out for a West End debut and 'Lachryma' is an all-out 80s arena ballad (with an air-grabbing key change. Don't let the biting guitar fool ya).

'Missilia Amori' AKA the 'Love Rocket' song, injects Ghost's tongue-in-cheek lyrics with a nod to Kiss, while keeping it connected to the wider album: the guitar takes on a choral style riff. Even though Skeleta sounds like The Clergy: The musical, there's something deeply reflective and personal to this album. 'Satanized' shrouds this introspection in a story of possession, while creating a blockbuster melody that channels Andrew Lloyd Webber as much as it does Queen. Tobias has a soft rock vocal at best. The Faceless Ghoules (AKA the band) do their best to crank up the music to make it sound as heavy as possible.

'Excelsis' utilises keyboards to give a 70s rock feel. This final ballad ponders on grief and mortality in a way that feels quite as intrusive. There's a romanticism to the track that feels confessional as Tobias sings about going to the 'Rainbow's End' and the 'Holy Land' – it's an unexpected and sentimental plot twist.

So, even though Ghost has something of an identity crisis, it's not an insult: they are just musically fluid, blurring boundaries of musical expectations. Tobias is allowing exploration and different facets of himself via the various Satanic pontiffs, while allowing a stronger sense of identity and deeper understanding of self.

But is it metal? Probably not. But The Faithful will decide, much like the Conclave, if the new era of Ghost is one they are willing to embrace.

*For the uninitiated, every album/era heralds a new costumed frontman in the shape of various Popes (all played by Ghost mastermind and singer Tobias Forge). There's also a running storyline, like the gritty version of the Marvel Universe.