Big week for pope stuff!
Literally everything I know about the pope and the succession process comes from the movie Conclave, which goes to show how long I’ve gone through my life knowing nothing.
But the succession that I’m most interested in right now is not who will follow Francis, but what Papa V Perpetua will bring to Ghost.
Ghost’s new record Skeletá dropped on Friday and I can’t get enough of it. The “are they metal??” debate around the band that has been raging since their first album has, to me, always kinda missed the point. Ghost is certainly metal-themed/adjacent, but their sound has always felt more 70s/80s/prog rock to me, with theatrics in the vein of Bowie and KISS.
Ghost seems to embrace the 70s rock more than ever on Skeletá, but it’s far more Journey and Kansas than Sabbath. And I’m OK with that! I love the contradiction of black metal visuals with songs that border on yacht rock. It’s a strange and beautiful thing, and I can’t wait to see them (for the third time) in August.
From the pinnacle to the pit,
Ryan
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