(Ghost photo by Maija Lahtinen.)

I’m aware that this story has been out for some time and isn’t exactly “new,” but for whatever reason it’s barely been covered in the metal media until today. And so:

What a crazy day today is turning out to be for metal vocalists.

The members of Ghost go to great lengths to keep their true identities a secret — they perform in masks and disquise their voices in intevriews, and the members of the band other than the lead singer are simply called “Nameless Ghouls” — but it appears that the identity of frontman Papa Emeritus has been uncovered. From Metal Insider:

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Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you gotta admit — the nameless, by and large faceless dudes in Ghost are some pretty interesting characters. And that web of mystery that surrounds them definitely adds to their appeal; I mean, if you really wanna know, it’s not hard to find their real identities on the internet, but it’s more fun not to know, isn’t it?

Metal Injection‘s new video interview with two members of Ghost — the first video interview the band has ever given — only adds to the mystique. You’ll learn a lot about the group, and really nothing at all, if that makes sense. Just think of it as an episode of Lost.

-AR

A few weeks ago, I saw Ghost live for the first time. And towards the end of the show, the band covered “Here Comes the Sun,” and I sent out this tweet, in which I declare their version of the song superior to that of The Beatles. I fucking love The Beatles, I’m not knocking them, but I have really never liked that song. It will surprise no one to learn that I have a hard time relating to the lyrics.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that Ghost have actually recorded and released the cover, as a bonus track for Opus Eponymous. So now everyone can hear it! It’s a great example of how to do a cover correctly, and that Replicants cover of The Cars’ “Just What I Needed,” the changes to the music completely change the entire mood of the piece and seem to give the lyrics new meaning.

Check it out:

Ghost’s Opus Eponymous is out now, and despite what Grim Kim believes, no, I do not think that they are the new Liturgy.

-AR

Thanks: Clint Kaio

Ghost are a band with a gimmick, and it’s a very,  very effective gimmick: they write incredibly catchy hard rock songs, the kind of Second Coming of Sabbath-type shit that lots and lots of bands are trying, and failing miserably, to produce even as I type this. Listen to “Elizabeth” and try not to move your body; crank “Con Clavi Con Dio” and do everything you can not to get it stuck in your head for days after. These tasks are near-impossible.

And I’m only too happy to report that, in a live setting, the aforementioned side-effects of those songs (complete inability to stop rocking, singing to oneself at all hours of the day and night, whatever the opposite of erectile dysfunction is, etc.) are only amplified; music this infectious is meant to be experienced in a communal setting, and the band’s perfect recreation of pretty much the entirety of their eponymous opus, Opus Eponymous, ensures that only one with the most rigid of sticks up his ass won’t be singing along from start to finish. Boiled down to its simplest element, Ghost’s success is based upon a really, really simple fact: they are excellent songwriters.

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Last week I saw Ghost live for the first time (at the Studio at Webster Hall, which, if you’ve never been there, is a very, very small venue — I’d be surprised if I ever get to see the band play someplace that intimate ever again). I’m gonna have a live review of the show at some point this week, but for now, I will sum up the concert with but a single word: YES.

The band was here for Maryland Deathfest (where, I’m told, they also dominated) and then they did that one gig here in New York and then, sad for you, they flew home. But now it’s been announced that not only are they coming back to the U.S. this fall, but they’re coming back to the U.S. this fall to play support for Enslaved (featuring Ivar Bjørnson, #22 on our list of The Top 25 Modern Metal Guitarists), and that further support will come from France’s Alcest. I mean, WHAT A FUCKING BILL, right? This is going to be one of the most exciting tours of the fall, and you absolutely cannot miss it.

Here are dates, via Lambgoat:

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Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash tells a funny story about his first listens to Aerosmith’s Rocks album. That day, he’d planned some afternoon doobage/canoodling with a comely young lady only to have his attention devoured by that then-new and always awesome Aerosmith record. I imagine him on her bed, shushing her and batting away her caresses — all because Rocks was totally rocking his world for the first of a billion times. I get that. Horny hotties come and go; an instant connection to timeless music is bigger.

And the very same thing happened to me Saturday night! Just replace Slash with hunky me (mental image note: I play lefty), his sexy chick with this chatty mess from my neighborhood, and Aerosmith’s Rocks with The Time Of No Time Evermore by Dutch occult rockers The Devil’s Blood.

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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

And now, it’s the time of the week you’ve all been waiting for: the three-hour window your folks are out of the house, allowing you to jack off comfortably Decibel’s monthly Guess Next Month’s Cover and Win a Decibot Shirt Contest! I’m going to predict this will be the first “FIRST” to get the answer right —provided, of course, that the band/musician/farm animal we’re spotlighting is in fact typed out below the “FIRST.” Unless the first person who sees this types in “System of a Down,” just to be a dick/radical. That said, it’s been a few years since System of a Down proper existed — although who hasn’t enjoyed the “Five Serj Tankian Solo Albums Nobody Cares About/Bassist ‘n’ Friend Randomly Beating the Shit Out of Brent Hinds Era” — so they could ostensibly be rocking spiked wristbands now.

But no, it’s not System of a Down. There’s your hint.

-AB

Decibel’s June 2011 issue, which features Ghost, Killing Joke, Mastodon, Hate Eternal, Gorguts, Protest the Hero, Born of Osiris, and Scale The Summit is available here, or make your mama proud and just get a full subscription.

Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

There’s been a lot of buzz about remaking The Crow with Bradley Cooper. Because, you know, nothing conveys goth-punk flair, existential angst and an unyielding appetite for vengeance like the frat guy who probably stuffed fans of the original into lockers. The producers should’ve just gone to Killing Joke mastermind Jaz Coleman. Not only would it at least be novel to see a 50-year-old Crow, but he’s been dressing the part for years.

In 1980, Coleman and his band were bloodthirsty rebels in spirit, not image. Their eponymous E.G. Records debut careened unpredictably between post-punk, metal, prog, disco and what we now know as industrial. Killing Joke influenced, well, pretty much everybody in the interior and exterior of Decibel and MetalSucks’ Venn diagram. (If you’ve never heard them, somehow, drop a jaw at the third paragraph of their Wiki page.) Add incendiary, prophetic, political screeds to taste, and you’ve got a recipe for a wicked Hall of Fame, appearing in our Ghost issue.

As usual, author Chris Dick went above and beyond to make this HOF one of the most thorough Killing Joke interviews ever; hence, we have reams of bonus content. Here’s a little bonus bloodsport to whet your appetite.

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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

It’s always a plus when a band has a distinct, imaginative visual presence and it’s not commonly referred to as their “shtick.” Then again, once you read our Ghost cover story, it should be clear that the Nameless Ghoul and his minions are perfectly content with the concept of … well, whatever “shtick” translates to in Sweden. Ghost and their debut LP Opus Eponymous are polarizing for a number of reasons—sonic resemblance to another infamously pale, made-up metal provocateur being the big one—but the band clearly places as much emphasis on message as music. The hooks are intended to get you under the tent for exposure to the really subversive stuff.

We had to go across the pond to get it, though, as the Nameless Ghoul leads dB scribe James Hoare through the corridors of London’s iconic St. Bartholomew the Great (known to viewers of endearing dogshit as a pivotal setting in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves). The resulting deconstruction of heavy metal as entertainment is alternately cynical and inspiring, but a great read allthe way through. Subscribers will have the issue within the next couple weeks, but the rest of you can pick it up today and get your bonus Gates of Slumber hot flexi injection.

–A.B.

Decibel’s June 2011 issue, also featuring Killing Joke, Hate Eternal, Gorguts, and Scale The Summit is available here, or be make your mama proud and just get a full subscription.

From Devin’s Twitter feed, via MS readers Jonathan Delarosa and Sean Williams. Puuuuurdy.

Carry on.

-VN

Ghost’s Opus Eponymous, out this week on the CD format in the U.S., has garnered quite a bit of praise and has even drawn the ire of Sarah Palin.

New releases from Ghost (in the U.S.), Electric Wizard and Acid Witch make this week a great one for fans of psychadelic, doom, stoner and the like, while KsE side-project Times of Grace finally hits the shelves and NJ slammy death metallers Abacinate deliver their ripping tribute to fallen vocalist Jason “Plunger” Sica. Our previews of those releases and others coming out this week after the jump.

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It all started when humble blogger Keith Spillett tried a little good ol’ fashioned investigative journalism for his blog Tyranny of Tradition, but it ended with an email from Sarah Palin herself praising trad metal outfit Ghost and condemning all of their fellow Swedes. How’d it get from there to here?

Spillett had been hammering Palin’s people for a response about her use of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla” as an entrance song for a campaign speech in 2008; after months and months of unreturned emails, Spillett’s inbox finally lit up with a response from Palin herself, and better yet, a follow-up including her thoughts on Ghost’s Opus Eponymous, an album that’s certainly got quite a bit of buzz in the metal community right now. Palin a metalhead? Who’da thunk it.

I’ll let you all read the entirety of Palin’s email on your own time, including bits about her love of Blue Oyster Cult and her TLC television show. But for now, the juicy bits:

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