After their fifth album, ‘Impera’, Ghost yearns for the first division of metal and hard rock bands, the one that has been taken over by giants with 40 and 50 years of history. It is understandable why these Swedes could be the chosen ones: they sibyllinely combine obscurantism and diaphanous melody with views of pop, They know how to cultivate the sensationalism of the gothic-satanic aesthetic, and even without inventing anything, they have a lot of good songs like the ones that made the audience at the Palau Olímpic in Badalona howl this Saturday.
Although they did not occupy the entire capacity (about two thirds of the entrance), the jump to the pavilion, after passing through Apolo, Razzmatazz and the Sant Jordi Club on previous visits, represents one more step for a band that in London is already allowed to fill an O2 Arena. The ‘show’ of the ‘Imperatour’ was up to the task with its cathedral stained glass windows and pantheons, its flares and, more importantly, its applied instrumental execution, with those seven ‘Nameless Ghouls’ at the pinpoint service of the songbook and the leader, Papa Emeritus IV, ‘alter ego’ of the astute Tobias Forge.
the full arsenal
It was surprising that the new material did not dominate the session (only four songs), perhaps because the group now favors ‘greatest hits’ to satisfy newcomers. But the expeditious opening theme, ‘Kaisarion’, or that sibylline pop number called ‘Spillways’ (missing link between Abba and ‘hair metal’ with little keyboards from Boston), they earned their place in a ‘setlist’ that did well not to overlook the two pieces of the epé ‘Seven inches of satanic panic’ (2019) and that preserved the predictable anchor points in a Ghost concert.
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Namely, the solemn ‘Cirice’ (which won a Grammy in 2016), that song that Forge presented as “a ‘grower’” (which grows over the years) called ‘Ritual’, from her first album (2010), or the exorcist coven from ‘Year zero’, with its dramatic ritual invocations of Beelzebub, Lucifer and Satan. And if Iron Maiden takes the pet Eddie for a walk, Ghost now has Papa Nihil, or Papa Emeritus Zero, who was resurrected, coming out of a glass case, to give us a sax solo in ‘Miasma’ and move us that Forge is not without a sense of humor.
version of Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ bounced from last year’s ‘tribute album’ and which opened the encore, told us about the mirror in which Ghost wants to look at himself: that of the ‘mainstream’ conquerors from the cave. With that repertoire and that effective ‘shock rock’ package, almost anything seems possible.