Tobias Forge creates a new hypnotic and mysterious work
I will start this review confessing that I am a Just convert to the musical faith of Mr. Tobias Forge and the multiple sacrilegious incarnations he has made of his now monumental band GHOSTthat this Friday launches the album “Skeletá“. I recognize it, yes. I went from those who denied the band in their beginnings for not being” chicha or lemona “, for not being their music as brutally heavy as their dark image and their demonic lyrics reflected. Being a given fan of the doom and the dark sounds, I felt” fraud “by those vintage keyboards, those melodies almost pop Musical heterogeneity that took me out of my comfort zone.
Until I heard “Prequelle”(2018) carefully and I had to start giving up the evidence that we are facing a rara opinion of the motley metal universe that almost deserves its own category. “Prevails”(2022) captured me completely and from there I began to investigate in his discography with due rigor to discover a brave band, without complexes and, above all, with a very refined taste for evil melodies. Now, which are already the colossal band that we all know, Pope V perpetual and his Nameles Ghouls assault us with a new chapter of his sacrilegious choice entitled “Skeletá”. Let’s start the ceremony …
The liturgy of the songs of “Skeletá”
Something that is of law highlight as soon as possible is the Apabullante Production That exhibits the album. SCUDADO After the pseudonym of Gene Walker, Forge is shown as a visionary capable of contributing to each song the fair and sufficient amount of instrumentation to be perfect. The mixture of the omnipresent Andy Wallace puts each instrument in place and everything sounds with a dazzling rotundity. We are facing an album masterfully recorded and overturned in the detail with the care of a craftsman. The angelic beginning of “Peacefields”, With those heavenly choirs, it opens the way to a total eighties guitar riff that could have been extracted from“ Trash ”of Alice Cooper, mass choirs on the bridge, a chorus that powerfully remembers the“ separate ways ”of the same Journey and a single guitar that could have been taken from“ Out of this World ”of Europe. of a lifetime and that’s it? ”, will you ask yourself, well yes and no, like everything that has to do with Ghost.
Because melodies have a Dark bias and a purely metallic sound that also remembers bands like Blue Öyster Cult. More metal is “Lachryma”, Theme that they launched as an advance and that has a tax guitar riff of those who Hank Shermann and Michael Denner crushed in the mythical discs of Mercyful Fate. Of course, the choirs are infectious and malignant And the guitar alone is of a luminosity of Jon Norum. Everything that surrounds Ghost is uncertain and surrounded by a halo of mystery, but It is commented that Fredrik Akesson (OPETH) has contributed several alone and multiple guitar tracks in “Skeletá” And I would not be surprised that that of “Lachryma” was yours for the tone, sharpness and emotion it transmits. A great theme that gives way to the other advance single, “Satanized”, A truffled half -time of catchy and hypnotic melodies that scare how perfect they are. The troton rhythm and the bass groove give a touch of joy to a song that tells the infernal possession of a cleric that, despite the agony, is attracted to evil in an unstoppable way.
The introspection of Ghost
Forge himself has told that “Skeletá” is another album introspective that his predecessors in which he talked about the pests that have ravaged humanity or about the rise and fall of the great empires. In this new forge, forgiveness … perpetual pot Free will and Luciferino hedonism that underlies the base of his philosophy as an artist.
“Guiding Lights” is a eighties canonical ballad in which even keyboards have that touch to classic synthesizer so taste of the aor bands. The batteries sound large and with that point of reverb in the box so retro and as pleasure from those who have been raised listening to bands such as Whitesnake, Bon Jovi or Europe and that they know that those were the great teachers in the elaboration of imperishable ballads. Layers and layers of voice and guitars make the song a candy of an extreme sweetness in the equator of an album so far outstanding. And I make a little spoiler now: The best is yet to comein my humble opinion.
“The depths of the borealis“He begins where his predecessor left him, with a melancholic pian guitars drawing melodies that sound more recent Iron Maiden. A subject of subject that is extinguished in a fade out Perfect wrapped by some cathedrals of dark invoice.
“Cenotaph” is a topic that is built thoroughly: hi-jat, hype, rigging guitar, environmental keyboards and infectious voice are coupled until they explode in a delirium of catchy melodies accompanied by a riff that Remember the more rockers abba (and it is not a joke at all). The treatment given to the voices in this album in general is absolutely sublime and the guitars do not lag behind. In this particular song the solos remind Boston and Queen and the dramatic break prior to the start that flows into the end of the theme could have been signed by Tom Scholz himself. Simply masterful.
“Missilia Amori” could be the subject that, for the moment, has less hooked me. Is pure def leppard from “Hysteria”an album for which Forge has shown public veneration, and production, the sound of the battery, the guitar riffs … Everything, even the chorus, could have figured normally on a record of those of Sheffield and nobody would have noticed it. Sound perfection and sorcerent melodies for an issue that, despite what has been said, keeps the pulse of an album that is already on the way to the outstanding one.
The final section of “Skeletá” leaves the album at the top
“Marks of the Evil One“Plethoric starts from infectious melodies that anticipate what we will find later and then go back a few steps to let the low slide (what a low sound …) and the winding guitar riffs are paiding the path on which the voice of potatoes v perpetua whispering melodies of a supreme malignancy is paid solemn. The guitars are in this song Total protagonists Always accompanied, yes, for some subtle keyboards but essential to build that dreary and haunted scenario that catches you irremediably. The choros of the chorus seem thought so that in direct the faithful of the ghostic faith of Forge leave the vocal cords and integrate totally into the satanic liturgy rounding an issue that, in my opinion, is one of the albums of the album.
“Umbra” begins with the aforementioned eighties synthesizers That we like those who grew up listening to the Hard Rock of the 80s. But that nobody is called to deceit, soon the theme gives way to a poisonous guitar, to a battery that weaves a complex pattern and a sinister and sisante voice that announces that “in the shadows death will be our lover …”. The increase in speed in the chorus causes the issue to gain in brightness, but In stanzas is where we perceive malignancy better of a theme that advances along the paths of musical perfection and that at one point is sponge to accommodate a stratospheric Hammond keyboard solo duel and bands like Deep Purple or Uriah Heep. A technical and melodic delirium that enhances the song until it placed it, in my opinion, on the top of “Skeletá” as the best theme for its musical wealth and its overflowing emotion.
The epic and sinister closure is “excelsis”, a MELENCOLÓLIC that leaves a feeling of strange placidity and desire to listen to the album again.
We are facing one of Ghost’s best albums and, without a doubt, before One of the best albums of the year. Perpetual Pope and his Nameles Ghouls have again spent our souls with their musical teaching and their dark ministry. Let’s fall against their dark power and Let’s proclaim the dark holiness of “Skeletá”. Amen.
RECOGRAPHIC: LOMA VISTA RECORDINS
More information about Ghost and his “Skeletá” on his Facebook page.
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