Maybe it’s the lingering effect of COVID-19, or maybe the changing landscape of the ever-elusive entertainment industry. Whatever the reason, the concert-going culture has seen a rise in the value of performance. After all, we have music at home; streaming services are taking over the world, and the average listener is craving a different kind of experience. Something exciting, something new, something distinctly different from the act of staring at the wall, sitting on the couch in one’s living room.
Nowadays, everything seems to be better if it’s somehow multidisciplinary: cutting-edge technology in the form of a little Star Wars-inspired droid at an Nvidia presentation, cutting-edge performance manifested in the music-synced bracelets and the theatrics of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. And few bands understand this craving for spectacle quite like Ghost.
It may seem surprising given that, on paper, they feel anything but here-and-now. The days of shock rock and heavy metal provocation appear long gone, leaving little room (at least at first glance) for a band whose central themes revolve around words like “satanic,” “blasphemy” and “possession.” Yet, Ghost thrives precisely because they understand the appetite for a larger-than-life thrill that has taken over the modern audience. With the intricate lore revolving around a thinly veiled, tongue-in-cheek parody of the Catholic church, the elaborate costumes and acts of “resurrection” for sax solos on stage, Ghost has been keeping their listeners on the hook for two decades now. And they show no signs of slowing down.
In early March, Ghost gently teased the arrival of their new long play Skeleta, priming the fanbase with the first single. “Satanized” — a lovely, simple occult song about love — merges the familiar, gritty buzz of elaborate guitar solos with playful twinkles of something old-timey and harpsichord-sounding. Sonically, it does not stray too far away from their previous full-length release, IMPERA. However, Tobias Forge, the mastermind behind the project, teased an increasing interest in marrying a hard-rock backbone with the playfulness of pop. It remains to be seen whether this aspiration seeped into Skeleta.
“Satanized” heralds not just the new record, but a new incarnation of Ghost’s ever-morphing frontman. With each cycle, a dizzying array of clergy members expands to accommodate a fresh face — or, rather, a fresh mask. Tobias Forge doesn’t simply shift aesthetic, he conjures up a new persona complete with their own attire, backstory and mannerisms, turning each era into a performance in itself. From the grandeur of Papa Emeritus III to the sitcom-like career ladder climb of bumbling Cardinal Copia, the evolution of Ghost’s characters and the associated lore is as much a part of the Ghost mythos as their music. The music video for “Satanized” offered a glimpse of Papa V Perpetua, who will take over the upcoming Skeleta tour (yes, you guessed it — the Skeletour). It is not yet clear what the relationship between Papa V Perpetua and the Clergy, as well as his satanic predecessors, is. The entire line of past frontmen appears to have been a family tree rather than a random collection of personalities, according to both Reddit and Forge himself. This generational continuity — reimagining the entire idea of a music career measured in albums — gives Ghost’s world an emotional weight beyond corpse paint and gimmicks. Fans do not spend their time idly anticipating new albums, they theorize and map the rises and falls of Papas like modern-time medieval historians. This deep investment turns each release into not just a mere music event but, rather, a revelation and a glimpse into an intricate world of interpersonal drama and royal levels of intrigue. As Skeleta looms, the faithful aren’t just tuning in for the music, they are awaiting a Message from the Clergy.
And Tobias Forge knows exactly how to deliver one. In a recent Rolling Stone UK interview, he dropped yet another breadcrumb for an already ecstatic fanbase: an official graphic novel promising a deep dive into the backstory of one of the secondary characters. The project has long flirted with expansion into spaces not traditionally associated with music. Their YouTube channel hosts a mini-series that pulls back the curtain on behind-the-scenes Clergy drama, while their part-concert, part-off-Broadway musical film Rite Here Rite Now became the highest-grossing hard rock cinema event ever in North America. Ghost is no longer just a band — it’s a franchise, adjusting to the interests of the capricious modern audience with masterful ease. In an era desperate for spectacle, they offer a whole world, and it’s hard not to feel giddy (possessed, even) with frantic excitement for what’s coming next.
Arina Zadvornaya is a graduate student in the College of Engineering. She can be reached at az499@cornell.edu.
