26.04.2026 – Ghost

Ghost – Ritual

Ghost. In and before 2018 I listened to almost nothing else. I had 6724 logged songs, 52% of which were Ghost songs. Then my gradually stopped listening to them. I didn't really like Prequelle (I deluded myself for a bit saying it wasn't that bad) and when IMPERA came out in 2022 I already didn't listen to much, if any, Ghost anymore. And I really didn't like IMPERA at all. Or anything Ghost produced after Prequelle, for that matter. The music didn't really do it for me anymore and Ghost as a whole felt more and more like a commercial product instead of just some good satanic melodies. Ghost was always a band with a gimmick (masked singed, a bit of narrative, no one knew who the person behind the project was), but now it seemed to me like the music became secondary and they went all in for a big narrative that people can obsess over. Don't get me wrong, I liked the narrative before, it was nice to have. But in my opinion, that narrative should always be small, easy to understand, essentially just some flair.

But a few days ago I got the urge to listen to some Ghost again and have since listened to Opus Eponymous, Infestissumam and Meliora multiple times over. Ghost can put out whatever new music they want, but those albums will always be special to me. They're great songs on their own, but in addition they remind me of simpler times. I remember playing tons of Destiny 2 with Ghost (and others) on in the background. Like I said, good times. I should revisit more of those artists that I listened to in those times.

I had a really hard time picking a single song today to be Track of the Day. I could've really picked any song of those three early albums (except for Ghuleh, I don't like that one). Anyway, I could also pick Zenith, because it finally got an official release outside of a rare "Meliora Redux" version. Now we just have to hope that their Here Comes The Sun cover gets a release outside of Japan as well (I listened to that one so much) and the cover of Leonard Cohen's Avalanche gets an official release as well.

Oh, and one last thing I have to mention on account of this being the #1 Messiah Marcolin fan-site: Messiah almost became Ghost's vocalist! But when Tobias Forge couldn't get in touch with him, he decided to do the vocals himself. I can't even begin to imagine how obsessed I would've gotten with Ghost if that had happened.

Additional listening: Opus Eponymous, Infestissumam & Meliora (Deluxe) albums. Maybe start with Meliora? It's their masterpiece.