Ghost - Prequelle

The strong polarity of opinions regarding Ghost doesn’t exactly make sense to me. From the start in 2010 the then-anonymous group of robed apostates made their intentions to make fun, campy classic retro metal with overt satanic flair clear, and even if listeners going in might have expected something more blackened from seeing the band’s imagery, what Ghost delivered on Opus Eponymous was a perfect mission statement for the band and not at all hard to wrap one’s head around.

The frustratingly common detraction I see levied against the band is that they’re “not metal”. I’ve already discussed on this blog the flaws of this kind of gatekeeping mentality when it’s blatantly falsely applied (such as in Ghost’s case), so I won’t suck up more time and space getting too deep into that here. Ghost plays metal, and even though Opus Eponymous was full of catchy 70’s-esque smoothness, it was well in line with what metal was and has evolved toward. And if that still isn’t enough, their 2015 masterpiece, Meliora, combined the succinctly written theatrics of their debut record with the intricate orchestration of their sophomore and heavier instrumentation than ever all to create a modern metal classic. To shut Ghost out of the gates of metal is stupid. They play metal. Yes, their image is gimmicky and attention-grabbing. It’s not the only thing “metal” to them. The music is well-written and well-performed and full of metal’s key characteristics.

I just had to get that out of the way. I could get more in depth on the discussion of their impact on metal and part of the community’s childish response to them, but I’d rather not get this too bogged down in a messy, stupid discussion.

I remember hearing Ghost’s first album when it came out, my first impression of which was like that toward any novelty project (which to a degree Ghost still is), but the more I returned to the album to find myself more infected by the songs’ hooks, the more I appreciated what Ghost were doing that no one else was. And as of now, they still don’t really have any competition. Opus Eponymous was chocked full of goofy satanic lyricism and a magnificently campy elaboration on their visual aesthetic. The compositions were straightforward, concise, catchy, and consistent, keeping the sound retro by limiting the extra-instrumental production. Infestissumam was a mild, but noticeable sophomore slump, mostly for its kind of fumbled handing of the integration of the more grand-sounding instrumentation into the band’s repertoire, at the expense of the songwriting. It was around this time that I had kind of thought Ghost’s brilliance in 2010 might have been a fluke (despite the enjoyability of their short covers EP, If You Have Ghost). But in 2015, the band took everything they had done and perfected it on Meliora, an album of front-to-back compositional excellence. The campy subject mater was still there, but it was hard to treat such an epic, well-crafted album as something as silly as their first album. Nevertheless, Meliora was a grand experience of serious catchiness and familiar fun. The song “Square Hammer” they released with the Popestar EP the following year only added another Meliora-level classic to the band’s catalog, and of course raised expectations of whatever was to come next, which has now arrived.

The turbulently contextualized Prequelle (preceded by the unfortunate revealing of Ghost’s members’ identities via an ugly lawsuit by former members) feels like the first stumble the band has taken since Infestissumam and didn’t leave a very nice first impression on me. But it has since grown on me enough to not completely pan it. I’ve definitely had to approach it from a slightly different angle than Ghost’s previous works. Nevertheless, something about it feels a bit off. Though the subject of death lines the album, it feels like the least committed Ghost has ever been to a subject matter, a style, and at times even writing.

After listening to it so many times and trying to figure out what’s the matter with it, I think I finally figured it out, and it may sound absurd. Ghost have always made campiness a part of their sound and their aesthetic, and, if it makes any sense, on Prequelle it feels like the campy has transformed into cheesy.

There have been a few minor discussions among people thinking Ghost is “selling out”, nothing new, and someone will say that about just about any artist, so it’s easy to write off. And the group have been upfront about wanting to grow and play on the biggest stages in the world, but it didn’t ever look like they’d have to take a loan out to buy their souls back from the devil so that they could sell them to industry executives. Ghost have been building their empire doing only what they set out to do musically. Yet Prequelle feels a little bit scattered, like it’s trying to have a little something for everyone while still not totally abandoning Ghost’s core style. It’s not like some of the more obviously focus-grouped projects that have come from radio-hungry rock bands lately (Black Veil Brides, Asking Alexandria, Godsmack, Shinedown), but it feels like the band isn’t as concentrated on doing what they do best regardless of how marketable it might be. And it’s not like it’s something tainting every moment on the album; it’s subtle.

The album’s lead single “Rats” enters through the doors opened by the children’s choir-led singing of the morbid nursery rhyme “Ring a Ring o’ Roses” on the introductory track. The segue feels a little bit awkward, and I feel like the band could have made a stronger or more fitting intro track if they were going to go with an intro track. Nevertheless, “Rats” is a pretty strong single for the album that captures the band’s gradually calibrated approach to fun, goofy, catchy, arena rocking, old-school metal. It’s no “Square Hammer” or “Absolution”, but it’s a solid song from the group. And the band do succeed a few more times on the album at recreating this magic in ways that sound more fun and campy than overthought and cheesy. The song “Faith” immediately afterwards, channels a more pounding beat through its four and a half minutes, overlaid by classically (yet still modern-sounding) crunchy guitars and a wonderfully cultish ritualistic melody. It feels like something that might have stood as a B-side from Meliora, though it would be playing substitute fiddle to the heavy classics “Cirice” and “From the Pinnacle to the Pit”. The angelically sung and gorgeously melodic “Witch Image” also finds the band in their sweet spot of campy horror-themed theatrics and efficiently infectious retro-metallic song-writing.

Yet the times Ghost pull through with solid songs on the album feel less well-supported by the rest of the material surrounding it. It feels like the supreme hits are too few and few between, and the culprits are easily identifiable. The milder of the album’s missteps is the 80’s-esque power ballad “See the Light”, which is only really a lesser track on the album for its apparent lack of ambition. I’m not opposed to 80’s power ballads, but Ghost doesn’t elevate the form quite as much with this song as they do so well with other songs that play on older styles. I’d still rather listen to it than actual 80’s power ballads. Speaking of 80’s music, the second single “Dance Macabre” is a clear play on the decade’s many hard-rockin’ love songs. Catchy as any Ghost song, it feels once again like the band could have done more to transcend the style and make it their own beyond simply infusing it with campy/spooky B-level horror movie lyrics, which of course rides on the pun on “bewitch / be with” in the chorus. It’s, again, super cheesy, and perhaps Ghost is trying to go for that shamelessly cheesy vibe this time around. It sure seems that way by the time “Pro Memoria” rolls around. The corny “Don’t you forget about dying” lines really push the pins into either side of the corn on the cob. It feels like it’s supposed to be the album’s “He Is”, but not nearly as bombastic or endearing. It’s layered with a lot of choirs and it’s clearly meant to sound big and swaying, but it’s not really all that melodically or lyrically interesting, nor does it fully capture the fun Ghost has been cultivating across the whole album quite as well as they’ve shown themselves to be able to. The album’s closing lighter-waving ballad “Life Eternal” feels like it reaches the emotional heights it’s clearly meant to during its beginning moments, but its build into larger instrumentational arrangement after its intro doesn’t quite follow though and finish the job, ending the album on a note of unrealized potential.

Two of the album’s longest tracks are the instrumentals on each side of the record: “Miasma” and “Helvetesfonster”. “Miasma” revels in a keyboard-led sonic intermission that eventually strays into the slightly proggier side of Ghost’s sound, which of course, brings the sax to the song’s last minute. It does feel a bit like an extended interlude, but with a pretty tasty solo from the guitar, the keyboard, and the sax to ultimately make it a worthwhile time. “Helvetesfonster” goes for the gothic feel with its creepy piano motifs, but also serves as another opportunity for some delightfully proggy keyboard indulgence. Both songs showcase the band’s worthy compositional abilities in the absence of their leader’s ultra clean vocals, yet they do feel like they break up the album’s flow just a bit too much, which only lends to its feeling more scatterbrained than its predecessors.

At times it feels like I can vibe with the increased cheesiness on Prequelle, and after getting used to it and not wanting it to be another Meliora or Opus Eponymous, I can appreciate it as a good, fun Ghost album. Prequelle’s less thematically and musically focused sum perhaps just comes at an inconvenient place in Ghost’s catalog, overshadowed by the grandeur of Meliora and not nearly as honed in on the satanic campiness as Opus Eponymous. If anything, Prequelle’s focus is on lighthearted fun, ironic considering its loose lyrical focus on death. And even as a lesser Ghost album, it’s not too bad. It’s still pretty full of quality performances and writing, even if it’s a little more ballad-driven and all over the place. It took some time to grow on me, but I do think it’s a quality addition to Ghost’s discography.