Band:	Ghost
Album:	Prequelle
Style:	Hard rock, Heavy metal
Release date:	June 01, 2018
A review by:	nikarg

01. Ashes
02. Rats
03. Faith
04. See The Light
05. Miasma
06. Dance Macabre
07. Pro Memoria
08. Witch Image
09. Helvetesfönster
10. Life Eternal
11. It's A Sin [Pet Shop Boys cover] [Deluxe Edition bonus]
12. Avalanche [Leonard Cohen cover] [Deluxe Edition bonus]

You all know the stories behind Ghost's unmasking, the subsequent lawsuits and Cardinal Copia replacing Papa Emeritus III, so let's cut to the chase.

Ghost's popularity has been growing exponentially and this is not a bad thing because we want more people to be introduced to metal; or hard rock, whatever. The official video of "Rats", the first single off Prequelle, currently has more than 8 million views on YouTube. The band has proved that they can deliver excellent radio-friendly anthems; "Squarehammer", off the Popestar EP, is the perfect case in point. In this album, the KISS-esque "Dance Macabre" plays this role. Too bad that after "Dance Macabre" Prequelle just kind of peters out, revealing more of its missteps and radio-friendliness isn't one of them.

The record kicks off with a skippable, cliché intro with a children's choir singing "Ring a ring of roses" before "Rats" takes over with its great opening taken from the riff-closet of 1980's Accept. "Faith" is one of the heaviest tracks Ghost have ever composed and even though it is not as memorable and infectious as "Rats", it does its job well. The real problems start with "See The Light", a watered-down and uninspired ballad that just interferes right when the listener gets warmed up. It also makes it even clearer that they are aiming for a 1980's stadium-filling sound. The keyboards in this song are echoing Judas Priest's Turbo and the same happens during the proggy instrumental "Miasma", which also features some Khemmis-sounding guitar melody and a very sexy sax solo. It is a delicious composition but its position in the album makes the impatience for actual songs grow stronger. This is the first half of Prequelle that summarises my general feeling of it; it can be very catchy at times but also contains filler stuff that prevents me from going back to it and when I do, I press the "skip" button way more often than I'd want to in a Ghost album. On the other hand there are some superb guitar and piano melodies embedded throughout that make the album sound more uneven since you ask yourself "why did Ghost not include more of them?".

Prequelle would work well as a rock opera about the bubonic plague, which is its general theme and concept. This actually makes a lot of sense since Ghost is a very theatrical live band. However, as a strictly aural experience it feels disjointed and seems to lack direction being pretty much all over the place. The songs' sequence in particular is just wrong. The penultimate track is a second instrumental (Tobias, please explain why you need two of those if you are seeking commercial success) which could have served as the closer but the band chose to wrap up the album with yet another - the third in total - cheesy and forgettable ballad.

Ghost have been stirring controversy since their inception and Prequelle is bound to fuel the debate a lot more. The ones who worship the ground Tobias Forge walks on will certainly love it, while those who despise them for not being "metal enough" will hate it. I'm standing somewhere in the middle; the talent is undoubtedly there but unfortunately in this album Ghost don't make full use of it.

Am I disappointed? Well yes, because what we have here is a genius musician that set the bar very high with his band's previous releases but, alas, Prequelle does not live up to the great expectations. Next time, when he has enough worthy material for an EP he should not attempt to make a LP out of it.

"I feel the closer we get, to the last bow
I don't wanna end like this"