Band:	Ghost
Album:	Skeletá
Style:	Hard rock, Heavy metal
Release date:	April 25, 2025
A review by:	omne metallum

01. Peacefield
02. Lachryma
03. Satanized
04. Guiding Lights
05. De Profundis Borealis
06. Cenotaph
07. Missilia Amori
08. Marks Of The Evil One
09. Umbra
10. Excelsis

Is Papa Emeritus one of the candidates to be the next pope?

Haunting charts worldwide and taking satan mainstream, Ghost have been the rock success story of the 2010s; from pseudo-70s psychedelic rock to pseudo-70s pop rock, Ghost have evolved their sound over the years, while also changing popes more often than the Catholic Church. As of late, Ghost have produced some absolute quality tracks on their past few releases, though I don't think they've managed to make a consistently solid album since Meliora, compensating instead with a few individual classic tracks to buoy each subsequent album overall. Skeletá differs in that it is the band's most consistent record in a decade, but with lower peaks compared to recent output. Whether this is a trade-off that you prefer or not will colour your experience.

Wearing their influences on their cassocks more unashamedly than before, Skeletá will have you mentally mapping which bands have inspired what track. When a rock album runs the gamut from Belinda Carlisle, through Journey and Def Leppard, to Uriah Heep (just to name a few), you know you're in for a wild ride. Whether these pop leanings make you want to frisbee the album and join Gene Simmons in proclaiming rock is dead (though given Papa Emeritus has "died" and been through the circle of life more times than a copy of The Lion King stuck on repeat, Gene may have a point here) then more power to you, but first, if you can resist wailing Journey's "Separate Ways" in place of the actual lyrics to "Peacefield", then please help me, as I can't.

This unholy mix of sounds is poured into solid, well written tracks that blend proficiency and pop in equal measure. The Belinda Carlisle ('hell is a place on Earth' doesn't have quite the same ring to it) influence on "Marks Of The Evil One" only adds to what is an otherwise solid and enjoyable track, with the band (or Tobias Forge at least) knowing how to blend such elements in a way that serves only to enhance the various tracks. Key to this is the production work, one that, while lacking much in the way of character in itself, is vibrant and clean, enabling these disparate sounds to mix in a way that feels natural.

While there are a few noticeably weaker tracks on Skeletá (oddly enough, the band led off with the weakest in "Satanized" as the lead single), they don't detract from the overall listening experience, rather feeling like the band are in a holding pattern until the next track kicks in. "Umbra" is perhaps the strongest track in a very tight grouping, with its 'Uriah Heep meets fellow Swede Jens Johansson-esque solo' mesh being a killer combination. Though really, any track of the run from "De Profundis Borealis" to "Umbra" could be easily chosen as the best of the album.

The long-standing issue of Ghost being the metal Icarus and flying too close to pop for some will only be exacerbated here. With the likes of the Slade-inspired "Cenotaph" being a fault line that some metalheads can't bridge, Skeletá is likely to be the moment some will swear off the band for good; and for those listeners, please close the door on your way out... are they gone? They are? OK, because people, this pop pope stuff is really enjoyable, even if it's not strictly metal.