Ghost – Skeletá

Label: Loma Vista Recordings
Released: 25th April 2025

Behold: with their sixth album ‘Skeletá’, Ghost have finally found their luxurious 80s indulgence. The 2025 iteration of metal-fave Tobias Forge is embracing the heartachingly rapturous and channelling the proggy menace of the 80s, and is applying the Ghost template which is to say, everything is big, loud, and dripping with gilded lore.

‘Peacefield’ introduces the magnitude of Skeletá with an atmospheric mist parting before the track begins in earnest. And while this appetiser gives an overarching taste of what’s to come, follow-up ‘Lachryma’ goes hell for leather with the metal-pop combination Ghost have perfected. Each proceeding cut is a well-executed jewel in the weighty crown this album becomes. While most delve into familiar rock euphoria, ‘Guiding Lights’ relents ever so slightly. “The road that leads to nowhere is long”, belts Tobias, in a big, lighters-in-the-air moment ballad worthy of a clifftop from whichever Nameless Ghoul busts out the soaring solo. In fact, throughout the album solos come ripping like hell hounds unleashed, and in this realm of embraced excess, it never feels gluttonous.

By this point, a Ghost album is a bonafide good time. It’ll be wickedly indulgent and theatric, dramatic and rocking, and ‘Skeleta’ continues to prove why Tobias and co are not only mainstays but so beloved – few can toe the line between tongue-in-cheek excess and bonafide homage while bringing a unique backstory quite like Ghost.