Ok, so here's the cover of Opus Eponymous, the only album (so far) by the Swedish metal band Ghost. I saw this album randomly, and I was like "cool cover". It appears to be an homage to the artwork for the horror movie 'Salem's Lot'. 'Ghost' is also such a simple name but it's cool too. I found out the band was fronted by a certain Papa Emeritus, who dresses like a ghoulish bishop from Hell and no one can confirm his identity 100%. He's backed by equally mysterious 'Nameless Ghouls' on guitars, bass, drums, and keys, garbed out like wraiths. So there's this Residents like mystique going on. Alright? Still intrigued? I was. I saw a couple of live vids, and 'Papa' was into his role well, he seemed naturally in it and not doing over the top cheezy acting. The music seemed pretty good. Then I decided to actually listen to the album proper.
It starts with the track 'Deus Culpa'. You know, and I know, that Latin sounds pretty cool at least 90% of the time, and it's a great language for cool sounding song titles. So this opening track is just some organ noodling, but it does much to set the mood for things. I was still intrigued. BOOM. Track 2/'Con Clavi Con Dio' comes blasting in, sounding kinda like heavy desert rock-ish QOTSA-ish greatness. "Luciferrrrrrrrrrr..........we are here" 'Papa' 'sings', and this is the part where I roll my eyes and go "oh brother!" His singing isn't horrible, but it's a hint of nasal and whiny enough to be like, wow you suck man. Plus, Lucifer? The whole metal Satan worship cliche has been ridden so hard it's just a big joke. The rest of the album continues with some riffage that is either pretty normal sounding, or standout enough to be interesting, but the whole thing is just RUINED by fucking cheezy lyrics and singing. The bonus track for the JP version, a cover of the Beatles' 'Here Comes The Sun' was actually pretty neat. It's lame when the bonus track is better than the rest of the album!! But back to "Luciferrrrr". I mean, Satan worship isn't my cup of tea, but even if it were, couldn't these guys be less cliche and boring about it?? Couldn't they be REALLY fucking scary and intense, like maybe as scary as being buried alive with a rattlesnake in the coffin, or intense as Slipknot on steroids or something? I went to their website, which seemed like it had good design to it, but then you see like these little corporate icon links all across the top: Myspace, Facebook, Last FM, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube.
Ok, so you want to promote a band a bit. But then again, way to kill your whole mysterious image that almost was cool enough. Because these servants of the Prince of Darkness are 'tweeting'.. you know? Click the Twitter link and 'Papa' begins almost every single tweet with "Children (!)"...and then says blah blah blah vote for us or get ready for us to come tour your country or whatever. Right, so badass. Remember when selling your soul to the Devil for fame was enough?
Old Scratch, he'd look after it all, you know? You wouldn't have to beg for votes or likes or do all this posting and tweeting nonsense. Imagine how sinister Dracula would be if he stopped mid bite to tweet what he was doing? Tweeting and all that shit has no place for true servants of evil! Or, one could argue that corporate stuff is extra evil, therefore the corporate links are in line with that. Or maybe Ghost is kinda trying to be humorous or tongue in cheek. I hope they are, because if they are not, I'm about as afraid of them as I am of a little cute schoolgirl with a dolly in a frilly pink dress.
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| What's the matter Papa? Fruit punch making you woozy? |
Oh, and you know if you click the YouTube or Vimeo links, it doesn't bring you to Ghost's channel or whatever? It just brings you to the normal sites, as if you didn't fucking know they were there to begin with. And you have to type in a search for Ghost related shit, square one style. If you go to the 'Tour' or 'News' parts of the Ghost site, you see what you'd expect. Click 'Press', and it has nothing to do with newspaper type press, it's just a high res version of the Ghost logo you can download.
Neat! I can make bootleg t-shirts, and all the profits can go to my favorite local CHRISTIAN organization or charity (bahaha!) 'Contact' just gives you a slew of management/booking/label/legal/publicity/accounting contacts. Nowhere to contact Satan, that'd be cool you know? At least for their Satan loving fans. Also on the Contact page is a bunch of more links to partners and businesses. There's also a heading under the Contact page for 'Endorsement [:] Coming soon' !
As if there is not enough fucking corporate shit and namedrops to wade through there. Oh, and then there's a 'Coven' email address to ask them boolshit questions. I wonder if they even know what a coven is?
The last part of the site is 'About', which is a 100% totally blank page. Ooh, the mystery. It IS prolly still cooler than if they blabbered on and on about lords of darkness and yadda yadda. Ghost sucks!
I dunno, maybe I'm being too harsh on Ghost. They succeeded in getting my attention way longer than so many stupid black/doom/death/devil metal bands out there.
'Ptrckhale4' was quoted on YouTube as saying : "Haters gonna hate. All I can say is these guys are doing a world tour. What is your shitty garage band doing?"
I guess he has somewhat of a point. Still, I kinda like my shitty garage band, and Ghost seem to be only good in my mind if I don't take them seriously at all.
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| A very cool pic. One thing I'll give them credit for, good costumes. |
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| Ok, these guys GOTTA be tongue in cheek...with a photo like this. Still won't convince me they are more awesome than say, T00L or Type O Negative.. |
