Album Review: Ghost BC - Infestissumam

Are you also one of the people who find yourself wondering how Ghost B.C. got to be so damn popular? After all, these guys have basically made a career out of worshipping Satan. They've also released a line of sex toys that includes pentagram butt plugs and a dildo where the head is Papa Emeritus II's visage. How has this not put people off?

If Ghost were to be a parable for the children, it would be something like, 'Praise the dark lord and cast your image upon a rubber phallus embossed with inverted crosses and you'll get an incredibly fat cheque from some crazy record label, have Dave Grohl drum through a cover of ABBA's I'm A Marionette which is only featured on the deluxe version of your record, but still'. Doesn't sound half bad, does it kiddies?

Once, perhaps if, you can get past all the shock, awe and mystique of their second album Infestissumam though, there are a handful of songs that sound like nothing else in your collection. Gone are the Mercyful Fate motifs that made 2010's Opus Eponymous such a cracking listen, in their place… well, it's hard to say. It's definitely not black metal, it's not even metal really, it's like this kaleidoscopic trip of retro, pysch and goth pop rock. The band's metal influences sound as though they've been thoroughly filtered through The Doors' catalogue so as they're negligible. To the point where a song called Ghuleh/Zombie Queen, which should be a schlocky metal ripsnorter, is a creepy organ ballad.

Metal or not metal, Satanic or just a gimmick band, the music on Infestissumam is going to stick with you.