Album Review: Skeletá by Ghost

The Pope is dead, all hail Papa V Perpetua! Only Ghost could release a new album four days after the death of Pope Francis. Is Tobias Forge some sort of clairvoyant of our times? Is American VP, JD Vance, an agent of the Ministry sent on a mission to lay down the foundations for the coming of the new head of the dark Church, Papa V Perpetua? I don't have the answers to these mundane questions but what I do have is an opinion on Skeletá, the sixth album of Swedish spooky dubby rock band Ghost, and whether you like it or not. .

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The grave-robbing arc. Let's be honest -- Ghost were never the pinnacle of originality. Masterminded by the unmasked Tobias Forge, this semi-mysterious Swedish project has proudly flaunted an irreverent throwback aesthetic since their unholy inception, unabashedly donning the remains of bygone eras with increasingly burlesque showmanship. What has always been most enjoyable about such blatant borrowing was the unique perversion of genre clichés used to serve an underlying mission -- albeit, the upshot was framing Ghost songs as mere promotional propaganda for a facetious Satanic organization.

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There's no easier way to piss off a headbanger than by calling Ghost a metal band. As songs like the ABBA-meets-Def Leppard "Spillways" and disco-leaning "Dance Macabre" have proven, they're a pop group with a penchant for pentagrams. The Swedish band's reliance on Satanic theatrics and elaborate lore--such as the way they represent a "clergy" bringing about the birth of the antichrist--can feel, well, a bit silly.

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