At this point in their career, the Swedish metal outfit Ghost has built something undeniable. With a short yet potent discography and a seemingly ever-growing cult following, the band has established itself as one of the strongest and most dominant forces in modern rock. With every new Ghost album comes a new identity for the band, and in this case, frontman Tobias Forge donned the aesthetic of skeleton royalty Papa V. Perpetua for the band’s latest effort, SKELETÁ. Ghost’s first studio album since 2022 is a ten-track collection brimming with the band’s signature anthemic style and vivid storytelling, following Ghost’s trend of crafting ambitious concept pieces. The highly anticipated SKELETÁ finally arrives this Friday, April 25. After previewing a few tunes on their recently launched global tour, the dreaded question lingers: Can Ghost live up to the hype they’ve built for themselves?
The answer is somewhere in the nuances of SKELETÁ, and what a maze the band crafted for their sixth album. These ten songs carefully examine the idea that the world influences us and how our perception colors the world around us. The concept is stretched to demonic limits as Forge’s character battles with his inner demons just as hard as he fights forces out of his control, both attempting to sway the character to do their bidding. While the storytelling elements delve into the duality of morality, the instrumentation is far more straightforward. Ghost sounds focused, honed, and comfortable enough with their chemistry as a collective to trust their lofty sonic visions. On paper, SKELETÁ is a daring concept album poised to push the band to new heights, but its execution leaves a bit to be desired.
Musically, Ghost reached new heights on their latest. The instrumentation on SKELETÁ is fantastically chaotic, yet maintains a level of experimentation that emphasizes the nuances of it all. The angelic backing harmonies on songs like “Guiding Lights” bring the lyrics to life, while the synth work and subtle funk on “Umbra” introduce an entirely new side of Ghost. The band has always prided itself on its ability to shift sonics with every release, and SKELETÁ might be their most ambitious musical leap yet. Ghost successfully expanded the idea of hard rock to include subtle touches of infectious pop, as seen in the heartfelt ballad and album closer, “Excelsis,” and incorporated twinkling keys into their chugging melodies on “Cenotaph.”
The band sticks to their promise of shifting their sound with every release, but lyrically, their ambitious concept comes off blunt. The songwriting of SKELETÁ is filled with images of candle-laden altars, demonic spirits, and the navigation of a moral compass. Much like the arrangements, you can hear a promising shift in Forge’s vocals as they howl over these concentrated yet whimsical arrangements, but the words they deliver take away from the nuanced poetry of it all. While there are some lyrical highlights, such as the aforementioned outro and the powerful single “Satanized,” these songs find the band falling back on hard rock tropes, revealing a layer of reality in the theatrical world the band had built on SKELETÁ.
While their songwriting isn’t the ambitious leap of the production, SKELETÁ is far from a fall from grace for Ghost. At the top of their game, the band crafts an ambitious piece of hard rock that pushes their sonic limits while, perhaps to a fault, harkening back to their roots. SKELETÁ is a fascinating concept album with tight melodies and carefully crafted arrangements, enough to satisfy day one Ghost fans, but might fall short of bringing new fans into the band’s ever-growing sonic realm.
