Ghost - Pro Memoria

It has been approximately three years since I discovered Ghost. Ghost started their careers back in 2006, so it has been approximately thirteen years where they have been active. Yet, despite this passage of time, and the consistent increase in their popularity, Ghost is a remains a fun mysterious band to tell the average person about.

“Any plans this week Colin?”

“Yeah, I am going to see Ghost on Tuesday.”

“Who is Ghost?”

“They are a satanic metal band out of Sweden.”

I watch their facial expression and body language to the see how they respond. Even now, in this day and age, some people are uneasy about satanism, as if the devil is real, and as if any serious person takes anything satanic seriously. It is a joy to explain to people how Ghost have embraced satanism for their theme and extreme theatrics. Ghost is a great conversation starter.

In this year, 2019, Ghost released their fourth studio album, “Prequelle.” Thanks to the lawsuits Ghost front man was revealed to be Tobias Forge, many had already figured this out, I mean, good luck keeping a secret identity in the modern world. Anyway, Tobias has once again reinvented the front man persona for Ghost. This time, the Papa Emeritus character is not reused in a fourth iteration, but instead he has introduced to the world, Cardinal Copia. The satanic parody of traditionally catholic attire and character is repeated, this time instead of a pope we have a cardinal. Forge has a whole new look, mustache and all. I prefer the tuxedo and skull makeup of Emeritus the third, but I was able to see that version live, so I guess I am all good.

Ghost is at that point in their career where they are likely to reach critical mass. After three solid albums, two great EPs, and several successful world tours, those like metal know who they are. They are not likely to dramatically increase their fan base much more from current generations. With this situation at play, their fourth studio album was posed to be a great critical and commercial success, and so it was so. “Prequelle” is the highest chartering and fasting selling Ghost album ever. Critically “Prequelle” was accepted as superb album, many saying it was their best to date. I mostly agree.

The strong satanic theme and style of Ghost has resulted in all of their music sharing identifiers of similar creativity throughout. However, Forge has manage to explore different musical styles and influences from album to album thus far, and “Prequelle” has some charming inclusions and influences not heard previously from Ghost, and the result is an album as good as any Ghost album with unique Ghost songs different from anything heard previously. For example, I cannot recall Ghost ever using a saxophone before.

This is the part of the review where I pick a single song to talk about, and since “Prequelle” is very good, this is a challenge. The first two singles were “Rats” which I liked plenty, but I did not overly love, and “Dance Macabre” which I did love; to quote Philip Anselmo “huge song.” Seems like everyone who cares even a little about metal already knows how good “Dance Macabre” is, so maybe I will ramble about something else.

“Pro Memoria,” yeah, that’s a winner.

In my humble opinion “Pro Memoria” is among the best songs on “Prequelle.” For me, the three best tracks from “Prequelle” are “Dance Macabre,” “Miasma” and “Pro Memoria.” Being a big hit from the new album, everyone is familiar with “Dance Macabre,” Ghost closed the set with it when I saw them live most recently, it was great. The instrumental “Miasma” has some of the best guitar work of any Ghost song, it was great live, especially when Forge broke out the saxophone, he played it himself; it was one of the highlights for the whole show for me. As I understand it, the saxophone is a very difficult instrument to play, that Forge is a talented fellow. So, that leaves me with the potentially under appreciated “Pro Memoria,” they did not play this one live when I saw them, which is not a decision I agree with, but who am I to question Forge and his chosen setlist? The absence on Ghost’s current live playlist however does make “Pro Memoria” an ideal choice for whatever it is I am trying to accomplish on this blog.

The structure of “Pro Memoria” follows a simple but classic pattern, intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, outro. This formula is typical, but I like it, it works; probably more then half of all good songs have used this formula or a slight modification of it.

In the spirit of Ghost, “Pro Memoria,” like all Ghost songs, is first and foremost about Satan. Verses one and three start with:

“Lucifer, whispering,
Silently into your mind,
Who walks behind,
Who walks behind.”

The only thing more metal then Satan, is death. Naturally Ghost delivers on this in “Pro Memoria” as its chorus is as follows:

“Don't you forget about dying
Don't you forget about your friend death
Don't you forget that you will die
Don't you forget about dying
Don't you forget about your friend death
Don't you forget that you will die.”

I am always highly amused whenever music makes something dreadful in a cheerful manner.

In all story telling there can be no meaningful beginning without a meaningful end, and this in unavoidable because of the human condition that is life and death. We project our mortal existence onto everything, it helps us relate. Death is a natural part of life; and while we should avoid prematurely encountering it, it does not need to be feared, it is a perfectly natural phenomenon. So, when Ghost describe death as a friend, I get a kick out of it. We cannot forget about death, and we cannot escape its eventually embrace, but with a strange upbeat sound we can take it all in, in a very digestible way.

The entire album “Prequelle” focuses on a struggle to survive, but no song more so then “Pro Memoria.”

“Standing tall, invincible,
But do not forget your knives,
To save your lives,
To save your lives.”

This second half of the first verse makes it clear that the struggle is real, and staying alive is the goal. The chorus that follows and carries the song makes it even more clear that this goal is temporary at best. Heavy stuff. I like it.

I love comment sections, I learn a lot from them. The top comment from: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859571686/ tells us about the Latin phrase “memento mori” which translates to “remember death.” According to Lord Gonzo, who left the comment, there is a story of a Roman general who had a slave accompany him on his chariot and whisper to him “memento mori” and it is believed that slave was actually Satan in disguise. I tried looking up this tale, histories are uncertain if any Roman general ever did such a thing, and it appears unclear where the mythology of the Satantic inclusion originated. But hell, looks like this random commenter on the internet nailed it. There must a one-hundred present chance that is what “Pro Memoria” is about. Good job, Lord Gonzo, whoever the hell you are.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

Ghost - He Is

Sometimes when you write out your thoughts and feelings you learn a lot about yourself. I guess I must come to terms with the fact that I really like songs about Satan.

Maybe it is the rebel in me, that is drawn to the rebellious nature of Satanism and Satanist. It could be that the spirit of rock and roll that is of revolution and defiance, and from a biblical perspective the devil could easily be interpreted as rock and roll as he literally rebels against an all-powerful god. I like the complicated character that Lucifer has become over his many iteration and the complex entity that he has now become in fiction.

There are a lot of reasons to enjoy the fictional character Satan, and there are even more reasons to like the metal band Ghost, which includes all the reasons to like Satan. Satanic music, and Satanic metal are not new, nor is adopting a persona, but Ghost is something special. I think I have made that clear with my two previous reviews. I crushed hard on Ghost when I discovered “Square Hammer” and I have confidently declared Ghost as the best Satanic band ever with the best satanic song ever in “Year Zero” however Ghost has a fantastic playlist and they have another song that should probably, or possibly, be considered their very best and that is “He Is.”

“He Is” to the best of my knowledge the only song in the history of music that comes across as a love song about the devil. A love poem to the devil. Who would think to do such a thing? Tobias Forge apparently.

The theme of Ghost is Satanism, and its presentation and visuals incorporate much of what one would expect for demonic imagery, however there is also the aspects of parody present. Everything about Popestar was a parody of the Catholic church, and obviously the Pope. While Popestar is the most painfully obvious example of this Christian parody, it is far from the only action in inversion. It is not just he visuals as well, but also the sound, again, the obvious example is the inclusion of choirs and chanting, however there is only one song like “He Is,” and it’s parody come from Christian rock.

I believe you would be hard pressed to find anyone who respects or enjoys “Christian Rock.” Rock songs with Christian themes or messages are fine, but when the music comes second, the music suffers. Ghost, turning things upside down has effectively made a Satanic Christian rock song in the form of “He Is.”

When you pause to asses the content of some Christian rock songs, you should soon discover that the message of love for Jesus is venturing uncomfortably into the realm of being in love with Jesus. This adds an unintentional element of comedy to the genre, and Ghost, mimics this wonderfully in “He Is.” It is a ballad done in the style of Christian rock song, about their affinity for the devil. It is so intense in it’s phrasing that admiration becomes love, and the love is so passionate, that it comes across like a love song.

Who knew that this was exactly what the world needed. Again, Tobias Forge apparently.

Since discovering Ghost and “He Is,” I have on several occasions related this allegory and explained the great joy of this song. I received the expected reaction every time, a great surprise that such a song could exist and an even greater disbelief that is was beautiful.

If you pause to inspect the lyrical content of “He Is” you should soon discover that it is very poetic, and indeed beautiful.

The first verse:

“We're standing here by the abyss,
And the world,
Is in flames.
Two star-crossed lovers reaching out,
To the beast,
With many names.”

The chorus:

“He is.
He’s the shining in the light,
Without whom I cannot see,
And he is,
Insurrection, he is spite,
He’s the force that made me be.
He is.
Nostro Dispater,
Nostr'Alma Mater,
He is.”

The second verse:

“We’re hiding here inside a dream,
And all our doubts,
Are now destroyed.
The guidance of the morning star,
Will lead the way,
Into the void.”

And the chorus repeats twice more thereafter.

It is impossible to argue that this is anything other than high level romantic poetry. The combination of ideas within “He Is” is such an unexpected creation that many doubt it’s existence, or fail to believe the quality of the final art piece.

Any jackass can sign about Satan, but a genius is required to make a song like “He Is.” A parody of Christian style, an inversion of expectation, and a daring to be so bold to so openly adore the devil. It should not be a real song, but it is, “He Is.”

Until next month keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

Ghost - Year Zero

“Belial, Behemoth, Beelzebub.
Asmodeus, Satanas, Lucifer….”

Since I discovered them last year, I have been listening to a lot of Ghost. Despite my best efforts I have had a difficult time over the past couple years of discovering new music I like, fortunately European metal has not let me down, as Avantasia, Sabaton and Ghost all had new content released last year. I talked about all three last year, but I feel like Ghost, the new comer to my music collection, deserves more discussion.

In my opinion Ghost is the most interesting musical creation in recent history. A satanic concept group where all the band are masked ghouls except for the creator and front man Papa Emeritus who is a sort of satanic pope. There was a full commitment by the band to stay in character, and play along that they were legitimate Satanist, and actual ghouls, and this made for amazingly fun live performances.

It has since been revealed that the many of band members have been replaced and none of the original line up are currently active, thus confirming the potential immortality and quasi stage show nature of the band. It has also been reveled that all three Papa Emeritus who have thus far fronted the band were in fact what most people suspected all along, the same person, and due to a legal battle between past members and Emeritus his name has become public and he is in fact Tobias Forge.

Now I have to go and learn about Forge’s earlier work.

My first discovery of Ghost was their 2016 single “Ghost Hammer,” the only original (non-cover) song from their LP Popestar. I loved it. It was greatest song about Satan I had ever heard; but not for very long.

I went to see Ghost weeks after discovering them, and since I was only familiar with “Square Hammer” and a passing knowledge of the rest of their music I was in for a night of discovery. I heard many songs I would love instantly that night, like “Gheleh/Zombie Queen” and “Monstrance Clock.” However, nothing hammers and thunders quite like “Year Zero.”

I just really like the album Infestissumam, as all three songs just mentioned are from it.

It was an impossible to forget performance that sent me home directly to find these songs, I needed to hear “Year Zero” again, and have done so probably two hundred times since then. I have try to pace myself when talking about a band, not to repeat talking about them again for at least a year, and I have literally been waiting a full year to write this. If you are comfortable with, or enthusiastic about, satanic metal music, then listening to “Year Zero” is a must.

In “Yero Zero” the drums are roaring thunder, and everything is built around it and the marching base line. It is a perfect example of a heavy metal song, as it is both loud and powerful, but it is also deadly. Demonic chanting of the many names of Satan, and Emeritus sings of the futility of man’s struggle.

“Since dawn of time the fate of man is that of lice,
Equal as parasites and moving without eyes.”

That’s the first line, it really sets the mood.

It is a song of the hopeless of our plight and the pointlessness of our existence, as the next line makes perfectly clear.

“A day of reckoning when penance is to burn,
Count down together now and say the words that you will learn.”

Which brings us to the chorus, the amazing chorus.

“Hail Satan, Archangelo,
Hail Satan, Welcome year zero.”

The chorus is less sung by Emeritus and more shouted by him. It is a dark invitation that cannot be refused, welcome to year zero. The Satanic invocation adds that something extra that makes the song even more metal; even more badass. Ghost is literally yelling at us “hail Satan.” There is no subtlety in this chorus, there is no room for it. “Year Zero” is the most in your face, Satan worshipping song I have ever heard, and it takes no prisoners.

On an amusing side note, I find it charming the way Emeritus pronounces “Satan” in the chorus, instead of saying “seyt-n” he says “sawt-n,” I do not know if there is some deliberate reference being invoked or if this is an accent thing. I mean Forge is Swedish, but the Swedish do not pronounce Satan like that. Emeritus speaks in what I believe it meant to be a fake Italian/Vatican accent, which blends with his natural Swedish accent creating a very unique voice, so maybe Emeritus just pronounces Satan like that, you know… only he never does at any other time, and he says Satan a lot. Why “sawt-n?” Maybe I’ll never know.

When considering the greatness of a song like “Year Zero” it is a fair conclusion to draw that it is in fact the best Satanic song ever, not necessarily the best song about Satan or Ghost’s best song, however it is the best tribute to Satan ever, and given that most Ghost songs are effectively just that, “Year Zero” stands high among a very fine playlist.

More Ghost Soon.

- King of Braves

Ghost - Square Hammer

I really like Nuclear Blast Records. They produce a majority of my favorite active bands and I keep discovering new artist I love through Nuclear Blast’s website and youtube channel. One band that kept popping up in my recommendation feed recently was a Swedish band simply called Ghost, and after having multiple songs thrown my way I decided that I really liked the song “He Is.”

This is where I would normally start talking about the song mentioned in the opening paragraph, but “He Is” may have to wait for another day for a review, because there is another song that boldly stood out to me.

I made a number of really interesting friends when I travelled to Europe several years ago and they really paid off as facebook friends, as it turns out I have a lot in common with the random cool dudes I met in Hamburg. One was a fellow Canadian working in the United Kingdom, whom recently, shared Ghost’s “Square Hammer.” I am so thankful he shared that song, I love it. The moral of the story it is wise to make friends, presumably for a lot reasons, but one of those reasons is discovering more awesome music.

Before we go any further I should give Ghost a proper introduction because they are a complicated entity. Coming from the Daft Punk School of wishing to keep their identities secret, everyone in the band is dressed completely in costume of their fictional entities. The lead singer is called Papa Emeritus and he wears full face paint that resembles a skull and is often deck out in the mock attire of a satanic version of the Vatican’s pope, so yeah, that is pretty intense. The other five members of the band all wear ghoul masks and are literally referred to as “Nameless Ghouls” and are only identifiable by the unique alchemy signs they wear representing the five elements of fire, water, earth, air and ether. Hey remember when people thought ether was a thing? That’s some old school archaic science. 

Papa Emeritus and the Nameless Ghouls

There are a few advantages to hiding your identity the way the band members of Ghost have. The first is that it forces the audience and listeners to focus less on the men behind the craft and more on the actual art itself.

Another advantage is turnover; a lot of European bands have experienced major issues with band turnover. If no one knows who any of the band members are, then replacing them can go largely unnoticed and theoretically not harm or change the style of the band and its music in any meaningful way. The band Ghost, claim they have had a different Papa Emeritus on every album thus far, totaling three. The fictional reasons behind the replacements has to do with Emeritus the first and second failing to destroy churches and promote Satan effectively, which as I type out, sounds ridiculous, but hey Ghost are playing Satanist so that’s what we get. Rumor is that it has been the same Papa Emeritus this whole time and Ghost is just joking with us claiming they have ran through three lead singers and since we do not know the real identity of anyone in the band we cannot confirm or deny the validity of this claim.

Another interesting rumor is that Dave Grohl was one of the ghouls on one of the tours, just for a goof, since you know, Dave Grohl is kind of a lovable goof and that is the sort of thing he would do.

Now let us return to “Square Hammer.”

The song “Square Hammer” is a very catchy song, and when I first heard it I found myself bobbing my head along and let every hook catch unto to me. I read somewhere that Ghost were heavily influenced by Iron Maiden and that I think is a fair comparison, the base line gallops like Steve Harris, and two lead/rhythm guitars is arguably the greatest charm of later days Iron Maiden music and is mimicked in nature by the band Ghost. As an intense lover of string instruments, having three guitars filling the sound of the melody and harmony is something I also love. “Square Hammer” is a song I would describe as full and rich, there is very little empty sound in the song, a note or a beat fills every part of the song and is flush at every second from beginning to end, a very alive song.

I did not take particular notice of the lyrics at first few listens but around listen twenty or so I naturally started to memorize the chorus and verses and in that moment I knew just how casually Satanic Ghost was.

“Are you on the square?
Are you on the level?
Are you ready to swear right here, right now,
Before the devil?”

Well that is fun. Despite being so very Satanic, worship of the devil is not something that is forced into the song, it is just there, like it is the most natural thing in the world to bring up swearing before the devil, because for the fictional entities Papa Emeritus and the Nameless Ghouls it is the most natural thing.

Appropriately dramatic.

The video itself is fantastic. I really like Papa Emeritus, I liked his dramatic body language, every gesture he made significant and made me pay greater attention, it was almost like he was a silent film actor, which is appropriate since the video for “Square Hammer” is an ode to the 1920’s German silent film era.

I got the impression the video was a silent film concept but I did not pick up on the smaller details until I showed the video to a friend of mine who is a huge movie buff, upon seeing the opening shot, he says to me “Ah Metropolis.” I had actually seen that one and had to agree with him. He then continued pointing out the 1920’s German silent film references for me, most notably the part where a coffin opens on its own was a direct reference to “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.”

“Hiding from the light,
Sacrificing nothing,
Still you call on me for entrance to the shrine.
Hammering the nails,
Into a sacred coffin,
You call on me for powers clandestine.”

Like I said earlier, it is good to have friends, you can learn a lot about the history of film.

One last thing before I wrap this up. While writing this review, it was a Sunday night I thought I would check and see if Ghost were coming to town anytime soon. Tuesday. Literally two days and they would be in Calgary. So naturally I went. I was excited because I freaking love “Square Hammer” and “He Is,” I had learned a passing familiarity with a few of their other songs but I mostly going into the concert blind, not entirely knowing what to expect. It was a perfect storm of a good time.

My discovery of Ghost was still so fresh that not one second of the show felt slow of mundane, everything was exciting and new to me; most of the songs were new to me anyway. The live performance was masterful with excellent execution. Papa Emeritus had amazing stage presence and all those gesture and body language of quirky interest from the “Square Hammer” video were present on stage. The bits of dialogue were amusing on every imaginable front, curious and humorous and wonderfully casually satanic. When introducing the final song of the night “Monstrance Clock” Emeritus said, “This song is celebrating the female orgasm... in the name of Satan!”

I had a really good time.

It is not every day I get to discover a band like Ghost were literally about them and everything I learn about them I enjoy and crave more. This is indeed a wonderful world we live in where a satanic metal band can be so thoroughly enjoyable.

Until next month, keep on rocking in the free world.

- King of Braves

P.S.

They won a Grammy: