Having recently become a fan of this band through their
Meliora output, I was surprised to find that almost as soon as I had become a fan, powerhouse
Ghost released a brand new album. Unfortunately,
Prequelle is kind of a mixed bag: it's as experimental as
Infestissumam but rarely reaches the same peaks, nor are there as many heavy-hitting metal songs a la
Meliora or the Eponymous album.
According to Tobias Forge - now having doffed the cap and gown and donned the identity of
Cardinal Copia - this album is a kind of concept album about the
Dark Ages. Unlike other concept albums, such as fellow Swedish native
Bathory's
Blood on Ice or
Tyr's
Ragnarok, there are no musical motifs to tie the songs together: in this way, the three instrumental tracks don't add much to the album overall.
That's not to say that
Prequelle is a total loss: "
Rats" shifts from a riff inspired by
Dio's "Don't Talk to Strangers" before belting out an ABBA-inspired vocal refrain, while the opening riff of "
Faith", dripping with inspiration from
Metallica's "Ride the
Lightning", is sure to please the metal purists. Side A's power ballad "See the Light" gets honorable mention for a chorus that's so heavy, I actually wondered if the ghouls drop-tuned their guitars. Thankfully, side B doesn't mess around with cliche intro tracks with children chanting "Ring Around the Rosie", but instead kicks off with a
Scorpions-inspired power ballad a la "
Dance Macabre": I never knew the
Dark Ages were this upbeat!
The rest of the album, unfortunately, doesn't have much to it. "Pro
Memoria" feels like it belongs on a CW television drama, while "
Life Eternal" tries to recapture the satanic choral grandiloquence of more impactful tracks from
Infestissumam but falls short of the mark. Perhaps the disjointed nature of this album is because of the rocky legal litigation that the band has been going through from past members, but it's definitely going to take more time for it to grow on me than
Infestissumam. Hopefully
Cardinal Copia's second outing won't be too long-coming and we'll be given a more proper metal outing of the Middle Age-era of
Ghost.
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