GHOST: Meliora (HEAVY METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

It took Ghost only two albums and one EP to make their mark on the world hard rock scene. And whether you like it or not, the band definitely does not leave you indifferent. Let's remember for those who would doubt it that, since its beginnings, Ghost has always played a hard rock tinged with pop with unstoppable melodies and a pro-satanist universe, whether it's on the cheap but icy "Opus Eponymous" or the pompous and very vocal oriented "Infestissumam".

And the formula will not change on this very good "Meliora". If its look can make you smile, the band ensures with always as much professionalism and their music and their melodies remain of very great quality. If Papa Emeritus changes rank with the albums, he remains of course the one and only voice of the Phantom and if his vocals evolves again, he is less omnipresent than on the previous effort to leave more place to the guitars and keyboards.

In many aspects, "Meliora" will sound like the most solid album of the congregation to date. Choirs and keyboards open the mass on a cold melody before the arrival of heavy drums. As soon as 'Spirit' and its crushing toms, we understand why Ghost has chosen the rather pop sound engineer Adam Kasper. He manages to give the band the weight it lacked on 'Infestissumam' and counterbalances the light voice of Papa Emeritus in a suddenly obvious whole. The bass that introduces 'From The Pinnacle To The Pit', for example, has never sounded so hard rocking, even if the guitar solo seems a bit drowned out. Further on, the heavy single 'Cirice', whose intro evokes many of the metal canons from Dream Theater to Slayer, is simply huge and full of the creepiest atmosphere like its video.

'He Is', whose idea dates back to seven years ago, is not the most ferocious of the songs but reaches melodic heights thanks to a light melody where piano and acoustic guitar weave a melancholic frame of the best effect, while 'Mumy Dust' (another track rich in choirs and with a rather modern keyboard solo) goes back to the blasphemous register of the band. And if the lyrics are less raw and shocking than those of "Infestissumam", we like to hear Papa whispering in our ear infamous lyrics and always rich in Latin consonances.

The crushing mid-tempo 'Majesty', which reveals its addictive side as the listening goes on, starts like a very good Deep Purple with an excellent chorus to never weaken on the way and proves that here the band lets its music breathe like never before, bringing to its tracks a new conceptual aspect and a foundation much more in phase with the developed style, even on the brilliant 'Absolution' which could almost have found its place on the first opus of the Scandinavians.

This short album ends on a 'Deus In Absentia', which is both serious and luminous, and where the piano and bass lines prove once again the will of the band to propose a chiselled work. These last two tracks also show a more sober but not less brilliant Ghost.

Two short instrumentals ('Spocksonat' and 'Devil Church') complete this cleverly arranged album which will not make a stain in the band's discography and which should even, once tamed, age better than its predecessors. Definitely, Ghost is a real and great band, even if we still don't know, within this anonymous band, which musicians to adore. - Official website

GHOST

MELIORA

SPINEFARM RECORDS

HEAVY METAL