Label: Loma Vista
Release date: March 11, 2022
Production: Klas Åhlund
Genre: Pop-Hard Rock
Album length: 46:21 min
Rating: 8.5/10
Ghost have always been, and still are, a band you either love or you don’t. With their sharp, socially critical style, the mysterious Swedes seem to be holding up a mirror to today’s binary, “cancel-culture”-soaked generation. It’s been twelve years since Papa Emeritus first shocked the world with his satanic chants, but just like the world, Ghost evolve from album to album. Cleverly crafted storylines, the shifts between “popes” and the “cardinal,” and meticulously designed stage sets turned Ghost into a cult band almost instantly, despite the group’s relative “youth.” Unburdened by expectations, this time they dove into the pop-rock sounds of the eighties, and the Prince of Darkness shows up, believe it or not, in just one song.
IMPERA, as the name hints, deals with the rise and fall of empires. The album seems like a concept record but isn’t one. Tobias Forge got the idea while reading the book ‘The Rule of Empires’, and as he said himself in one interview, we’re living in an age of empires right now too (Nazism, the revival of the Russian empire, the Western capitalist empire,…), so there was no shortage of material.
The album opens with the slow instrumental ‘Imperium’, where a combination of acoustic guitar and electric lead guitar carries us straight back to the eighties and lays a solid foundation for the rest of the record. Next comes a fast rocker, Kaisarium, which, with its cheerful rhythm and melody, calls out injustice in the world while also reviving the memory of the Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia, who was killed by Christians in Alexandria for her progressive views. In the middle, the song shifts into a very progressive instrumental section that strongly recalls the legendary Canadians Rush.
It is the noise of the rightious dogma, that hides the handman’s tail, Hypatia, Far away from the stench of heavens, Hypatia, Long ago yet too close to forever.
The sound of ‘Spillways’ draws heavily on Bon Jovi (‘Runaway’) and Toto, but with Forge’s unmistakable vocal line. It deals with the darkness lurking inside us: just as dam spillways release excess water to keep it from flooding over the dam, so this surplus of our darkness often escapes into the open.
All your faith, all your rage, all your pain, it ain’t over now, It is the cruel beast that you feed, it is your burning yearning need to bleed.
The album’s second single, ‘Call Me Little Sunshine’, is probably the most “Ghost-like” song on the record and would easily have fit on the previous two albums. Forge explained that it’s about the consequences of the industrial revolution, which changed our lives forever, with the devil tempting us, at the expense of our relationships and human touch, through a constant push into technology.
You can always reach me, You will never ever walk alone, Even when you’re dead and gone, You can always reach me, All you gotta do is call me, Little Sunshine.
Like the previous track, the more hard-rock-leaning ‘Hunter’s Moon’ could have turned up on the last album, if not on ‘Meliora’ itself. Forge, a big horror fan, hit the jackpot here, since the song showed up in the film ‘Haloween Kills’ and is about longing for loved ones from our past.
Though my memories have faded, They come back to haunt me once again And though my mind is somewhat jaded now, it’s time for me to strike again.
Next up is the punchy ‘Watcher in the Sky’, a nicely done mix of hard rock and heavy metal, with a killer tapping solo that rounds off the eighties feel so well. Lyrically, it points to the side effects of science that have popped up in our times, like flat-Earth theories.
Communication is key, When you unlock to believe, Can you see what I see?, Searchlights, Looking for the Watcher in the sky.
After a short instrumental interlude, ‘Dominion’, comes the rather controversial ‘Twenties’. After a downright cinematic intro, the song morphs into near-death-metal rhythms, then calms down a bit in the verse, while woodwind elements weave in behind it, borrowing from the jazz and swing of the 1920s. The lyrics are written in the future tense, but the question is how different today’s twenties really are from the ones a hundred years ago. An era of wealth and prosperity, the rise of totalitarian regimes under the guise of saviors, and an ending in financial collapse and poverty. But fear not, the thirties are coming!
Tell ‘em all this is war, And not fighting a war is for the suckers, (kiss my) Assassinate, Gather the tools to disintegrate, (feed) hate, Reaping the seeds as a reprobate.
No album is complete without a good ballad, and ‘Darkness at the Heart of my Love’ delivers exactly that. The only question is who’s who in the lyrics.
Remember always, that love is all you need, Tell me who you wanna be, And I will set you free.
‘Griftwood’, which follows, delivers its message on Van Halen-style guitars, and according to Forge, the lyrics take a swipe at people like former US Vice President Mike Pence, who openly invokes the Bible in his speeches, doesn’t follow its teachings, and promises his followers they will never suffer again, something not even Jesus himself promised.
You want to guide the believer? (Yes) You and the greatest deceiver? And never ever suffer again.
The short, dark instrumental ‘Bite of Passage’ leads straight into the final track, ‘Respite on the Spitalfields’. A grunge-style intro, which, like this song, showed up toward the end of the eighties, turns into hard rock in the middle section, the solo moves into a classic rock ballad, and the passage after it goes full prog, so despite the slow tempo, the song stitches together quite a few different styles. In contrast to the rather depressing and resigned lyrical themes, hope appears at the end: today’s empires too will sooner or later end up on the scrap heap of history.
Nothing ever lasts forever, We will go sovereign Into the night.
IMPERA proves there are no limits or taboos when it comes to the music of Tobias Forge and his nameless ghouls. The album may not be quite to the taste of the band’s original fans, since it’s the least dark, the lightest, and, at least on paper, the least satanic, as well as the most danceable and melodic record in the band’s catalog so far. But it’s precisely this difference that shows what the Swedes are capable of, and that they’ve got nothing to fear for the future.
Author: Sebastijan Videc
Tracklist:
1. Imperium
2. Kaisarion
3. Spillways
4. Call Me Little Sunshine
5. Hunter’s Moon
6. Watcher in the Sky
7. Dominion
8. Twenties
9. Darkness at the Heart of my Love
10. Griftwood
11. Bite of Passage
12. Respite on the Spitalfields
Lineup:
Papa Emeritus IV – vocals
Nameless ghouls – all other instruments
