Ghost amass yet more papal power
PRESS/MIKAEL ERIKSSON/M INDUSTRIES
IT’S BEEN A while since metal has felt big. Not Andrew-Lloyd-Webberwet-dreams-symphonic-metal big, but ravenously ambitious, let’s-take-popon-at-its-own-game big. You have to go back to the late 80s and hair metal’s chart-gobbling heyday for a time when bands really, truly wanted it.
Sly old devil that he is, Tobias Forge has known it all along. A diabolic masterplan has slowly unfolded over his band’s four albums to date, with Ghost revealing the unabashed arena rockers beneath their (oc)cult metal raiment on 2018’s Prequelle being the biggest tell so far, not least Dance Macabre, which found our (anti-)hero hooking up with Avicii and Madonna’s old songwriters to deliver the 80s hard rock dancefloor banger to end all 80s hard rock dancefloor bangers.