This has to be a joke, right? I thought. A parody of ‘80s pop-metal excess in all of its wailing, theatrical, fretboard-shredding glory?
I’d heard that the sixth album from this influential Swedish rock band—perhaps best known for links to Satanism—had a new album out that proudly embraced an ‘80s vibe. But this? It sounded like it could have been recorded in 1986.
I confess I have no prior experience with Ghost other than hearing about the band’s infernal reputation. I was expecting something along the lines of maybe, Slayer. Or Marilyn Manson. Or Slipknot.
Yeah … no.
This was more like Europe (the band, not the continent) meets Iron Maiden meets, well, just about any other guitar-oriented hair-metal band from the late ‘80s you care to name. Ratt, Mötley Crüe, Alice Cooper and a longer list of other bands showed up in the “Sounds like …” notes I jotted on the lyric sheets. Let’s toss The Darkness and Steel Panther—two more recent bands that embody ‘80s extravagance—in the mix, too.
And then there are the lyrics. Lines like, “One day, fate will find a way through the marches of death/And right back to the bearer of light” (“Peacefield”). Or this: “Love rockets, shot right in between your eyes/Love rockets, excite me with your demise” (“Missilia Amori,” which is Latin for “Love Rockets”). Right then. Paging Spinal Tap.
The fact that lead singer Tobias Forge sounds just a bit like “Weird Al” Yankovic only added to the parody vibe.
But apparently, it’s meant to be taken at face value. Forge told Rolling Stone UK, “I’ve mostly described the record as one about being human. Life isn’t always great. There’s a non-deliberate, self-inflicted sense of unhappiness that we have subjected ourselves to because we have somehow got the idea that life is supposed to be 100% positive. Life is, unfortunately, a balancing act where good and bad is a pendulum going back and forth, and that’s something I’m guilty of not intuitively feeling all the time. That is a very natural part of the struggles of being alive, and it’s perfectly fine.”
Apparently, Ghost’s theatrical throwback approach is working, because it’s the first hard-rock or metal album to debut at No. 1 in four years. So now that we know the band wants us to take these lyrics seriously, what do we find?
“Piecefield” seems to play on the word “minefield,” suggesting that the broken fragments of our lives can be redeemed and restored: “Child, take your dark memories/Like seeds, and plant them far from here/Sow them/Feed them/Through shine and rain/Your love/Will be/Born again.” Later, we get verses about the importance of belief: “We all need something to believe in/Until it’s over.”
“Satanized” sounds as if it’s going to be as really bad song, a title that would seem to be in synch with the band’s reputation. Mostly, though, it seems to be describing a demon that’s taking over someone who’s crying out to be saved: “There is something inside me/ … A demonic possession/Unlike anything before/ … Save me from the monster that is eating me!” The song also describes falling into temptation: “Through a life of devotion/I’ve been quelling my urges to burst/ … I should have known/Not to give in.” Finally, the narrator cries out, “Save me, from the bottom of my heart I know/I’m satanized.” Not a great outcome, but the song, at least on the surface, seems to be about fighting one’s inner demons.
Lyrics in “De Profundis Borealis” describe a place of emotional imprisonment (“In a palace built of frozen tears/All life is gone”), but it insists that hope is not fully extinguished yet (“When tomorrow comes, you will know/That the morning thaws the ice”).
“Cenotaph” talks of a faithful companion in the storms of life: “On through the storms/ … Wherever I go/You’re always there/Riding next to me.”
Album closer “Excelsis” longs for deliverance and reconciliation (“There is still time for deliverance/There is still time to make peace with your friend”). The song is blunt when it comes to the inescapability of death: “Everybody leaves one day/I know it hurts/Everybody goes away/You will, too, I will too.” The singer expresses both hope in an afterlife (“Come with me to the rainbow’s end/Come with me to the Holy Land”) as well as some unease about what awaits (“This is the end of the avenue/I am afraid of eternity, too.”)
“Lachryma” metaphorically describes a broken relationship as a vampire: “In the middle of the night, it feeds/In the middle of the night, it eats you.”
Though we don’t get any hint of this in the song, the video for “Satanized” casts its meaning in a wholly different light. In it, a priest in a church confesses to masturbation (the priest hearing his confession writes the word in a notebook). That seems to be the sin being resisted here, and the vibe of the video seems to be mocking the notion of sexual purity.
“Guiding Lights” seems to suggest that the spiritual guidance someone has followed has ended up in darkness. “The path we have walked led us into the dark/ … The guiding lights, they lead you on/And the road that leads to nowhere is long.”
We hear this suggestive couplet on “Missilia Amori”: “A man of faith is hard to find/You showed me yours, I’ll show you my … .” (The last line isn’t fully finished.)
“Marks of the Evil One” includes all manner of imagery from the book of Revelation, much of which focuses on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the end, though, the band isn’t sure they’re buying that end-of-the-world prophecy: “And when the sun eclipses/It’s just abracadabra/Some hocus pocus sham.” The outro to the song, as lyrics fade out, include the album’s lone f-word. That said, it’s likely many people listening to the song without looking at the lyrics will never actually notice that it’s there.
“Umbra” is the only song on the album that matched my expectations about what Ghost might sing about. A dark song, it apparently involves having an intimate encounter with death personified … in a church: “In the shadows, death becomes your lover/ … In the chapel of the holy One/In the presence of the chosen Son/ … In the temple of the godly scene/In the shadow of the Nazarene/I put my love in you.”
For a band that has been notoriously linked with Satanism (and has often encouraged it in the past), this was not what I was expecting lyrically.
“Umbra,” admittedly, was in that grim neighborhood. But much of the rest of the album wrestles with spiritual themes with such surprising earnestness that I wasn’t sure if they were putting me on or not. Apparently, what we see and get here are genuine ruminations about the meaning of it all. It’s not all good, obviously. But there was more thoughtfulness here than I expected, and the band’s historical antipathy for Christianity was largely absent.
For guys who are allegedly staunch atheists, there’s sure a lot spiritual meandering here as they sing—with blazing ‘80s pop-metal abandon—about God and the devil, sin and salvation.
The fact that this album debuted at No. 1 means more than a few young listeners are going to be pondering—and perhaps need some guidance navigating—the spiritual questions and ideas raised here.
And that’s no joke at all.
After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.
