1 GHOST
Skeletá
LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS Skeletá completes a remarkable run for Ghost of three albums of the year on the trot. But if the top spots for 2018’s Prequelle and 2022’s Impera felt like forgone conclusions, this time around, our crystal ball was a little more cloudy. It wasn’t just that there was strong competition from recent winners Deftones and Creeper, this was also one of those Ghost albums that can take time to adjust to.
For some, particularly after the swagger of Impera, Skeletá’s move into more wide-open, AOR-informed territories felt indulgent (relatively speaking, of course) – more wrapped up in reverie than pressing hard on our pleasure centres. Other, early misgivings were there were no standout, rally-the-rafters songs to rival Rats or Square Hammer. But seven months and change after its release, all of us having had to endure another annus horribilis and knowing there’s worse to come, in need of epochal, emotional release and left with a faint residue of yearning in need of amplification, Skeletá hasn’t just emerged as a worthy winner. It now feels like the one album that most resonated with 2025’s psychic terrain, projecting it onto the biggest, most immersive of canvases.