Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
What would the world be like without a glimpse, the near voyeuristic delve, into the heart of darkness? Life cannot be simple, it must never err into the whiteness and permanent undisguised completeness that is offered by the pure and the noble, for nature in all its fury would surely see to it that something even worse, even more terrifying would come along and make us stare forever at the pit that would open up before us all.
There can never be Utopia without a dystopia to guide it and vice versa and for Swedish Doom Metal giants Ghost, dystopia and Utopia are a two headed coin that one dare not throw into the pit or the abyss and with their latest album Meliora capturing the darkness and the grace of metal with wonderful abandonment, dystopia more than holds a few surprises yet.
It was probably always going to be a big ask to follow on from the 2013 album Infestissumam but where there is an audience and where there is a set of songs that really mean business, that really take the ears to task, then whatever comes must surely be an album of quality and note.
For the pursuit of the better, of the next level in attainment and worth sits at the heart of Ghost, for the nameless ghouls in the band and those that follow every step with calm unfiltered devotion and in Papa Emeritus III, the high priest with so much to say and pretty much most of it at least alluding to very clever written lyrics, the pursuit is more than one sided; it anchors itself to the point of always being seen as improved.
The album contains songs that also anchor themselves to that truth and in tracks such as From The Pinnacle To The Pit, Spöksonat, the excellent Mummy Dust, Devil Church and Deus in Absentia, those songs are rife, they get deep down and nasty with dystopia and open the eyes and ears of those listening to the music.
Life is what it is, by always searching for the betterment of humanity we enable growth and a step towards salvation, however the cost of such growth in the end is stagnation, for nobody can grow to the point where everything is perfect and neither should they try to do so for fear of having nothing to achieve again.
A record of grandiose excellence, flamboyant, marvelling in the bleak nature that Humanity resides and yet at all times offering the sage thought of that there really is something better than this; it is how we choose to decipher that information which will show the way.
Ghost will release Meliora on August 21st on Spinefarm Records/Loma Vista Recordings.
Ian D. Hall