Justin Hawkins, the Darkness singer, complained in 2023 about being mistaken for the lead singer of a comedy band. “Some people thought we were a joke, a parody of some sort.” His frustration was as searing as one of his (non-comedic) guitar solos.
A similar point about earnestness being confused with irony could be made about Ghost, the Swedish pop-metal group whose output has long been assumed to be a tongue-in-cheek valentine to peak 1980s hair metal (spruced up with a dash of its grittier predecessor, the new wave of British heavy metal).
They certainly looked and sounded the part: Papa Emeritus, the alter ego of the band’s frontman, Tobias Forge, resembled an updating of Iron Maiden’s mascot, Eddie the Skeleton, with a papal hat bunged on top, while big singles such as Dance Macabre were possessed, in the most rollicking way imaginable, by the unquiet spirits of metal past.
To fans they were the best sort of tribute act. In seemingly pastiching Hysteria-era Def Leppard and coming over like a Nordic twist on classic Maiden, Ghost were a charming case study in air-guitar rock. The songs were irresistible, yet there was also that element of knowingness. How else can one explain a frontman dressed like a all-conquering space pontiff from the 24th century?
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Alas, with Skeletá, their underwhelming sixth studio LP, Ghost’s interstellar pope has been hoist with his own crosier. (He’s had a name change, too, with Forge upgrading his alias to one Papa V Perpetua.)
When the music is as captivating as Dance Macabre, it was fine to walk the tightrope between sincerity and satire. But what happens if the bangers dry up? Is there any point when you’ve got nothing beyond parody to rely on?
That is the question posed by Skeletá, which doesn’t get much more exciting than the accent over the “a”. Once again, Forge and friends prostrate before the gods of metal past. This time, though, they forget the killer tunes. It’s death-metal tribute pop out on its feet from the start.
You have to credit Forge with wanting to try something new, of course. Skeletá has been billed as Ghost’s most personal record – and, lyrically, it pivots away from the swords-and-sorcery hokum that dominated previous releases in favour of the comparatively relatable subject of the eternal search for human connection.
“I know I am authentic, so I’m just going to follow my heart,” the frontman noted recently. “Now, when I have people interested in what I’m saying, I’m going to say something more interesting. I can’t just repeat the same fictional stuff.”
Still, there is switching things up and dragging things down, and it is the latter pitfall into which Ghost have stumbled. Skeletá’s opening track, Peacefield, begins with a tacky choir and then plunges into a riff that feels like Guns N’ Roses covering Every Breath You Take, by The Police – all topped off by trite self-help lyrics (“we all need something to believe”).
It is a taster for what is to come on a sludgy and forgettable album. Satanized sounds like a justly forgotten Mötley Crüe power ballad; Cenotaph lassoes Mike Oldfield’s Exorcist theme to early Metallica; and Umbra suggests Simon Cowell’s idea of Thin Lizzy: it has the outline of the original but not the soul.
Lyrically, no toe is left uncurled, especially as Forge takes on the role of sepulchral lover man on Umbra (“In the shadow of the Nazarene / I put my love in you…”).
Here and there are frustrating glimpses of a better LP. Guiding Lights starts with a charming retro keyboard only for the chorus to land like a superior Andrew Lloyd Webber number (“the roaaaad that leaads to nowhere is lost”), while Marks of the Evil One is whipsmart panto goth in the tradition of Sisters of Mercy.
That rare high point arrives towards the end of an otherwise forgettable record – a moment of magic that cannot compensate for the carnival of cringe that precedes it.
Whether in earnest or with a wink, Ghost have always spun the cheesiest ingredients into pop gold. But this hollowed-out affair is haunted by the spirits of old glories. In pop terms it’s an empty mausoleum, doomed to inhabit a limbo of missed opportunities and creative paths not taken.
