lista zespołów Heavy Rock Ghost (SWE) Prequelle

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.