Artist: Ghost (Sweden)
Album: Opus Eponymous
(Sotto per l'Italiano)
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| Ghost, "Opus Eponymous" |
I love all sorts of music, but I’ll always have a fondness for 80’s heavy metal (not including hair metal, I still have very little patience for that). I was really young when the metalheads in my neck of the woods were listening to bands like Mercyful Fate. Being a kid in the single-digit age group, a lot of those guys and the bands on their t-shirts kinda scared me (if I’d only seen “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” back then), but I was rather fascinated at the same time. The logos on those shirts seemed from another world. They sent my imagination afire. Later on in life I tried my damndest to get into Judas Priest, Mercyful Fate, DIO, etc., but I just couldn’t stand it. I’ll never forget being 14 and picking up an Iron Maiden record (“X-Factor” I believe) and being incredibly pissed, because the music came nowhere close to sounding as brutal as the cover of the record indicated (on a side note, I’ve since come to enjoy Maiden quite a bit).
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| "Ghost incorporates costumes and make up to emphasize their evilness." |
I bring this up because Ghost (Sweden), brings back a lot of these feelings and memories. I can’t help but think of Mercyful Fate/King Diamond when listening to Ghost. The atmosphere they go out of their way to create, the make up, and the lyrics remind me of those initial reactions... I had too much of that heavy metal happening in the mid-late 1980s. Firstly, Ghost’s music is quite melodic and catchy, but their lyrics are almost over the top evil. Take for example the first lyrics on the record: “Lucifer / We are here / For your praise / Evil one”. I mean, come on, there’s no way as a grown man I’m taking those lyrics seriously. Now, normally, this would have me rolling my eyes and reaching for my Black Flag records, but as silly as some of the lyrics are they take what they’re doing very seriously and it fits the atmosphere they’ve created.
