Swedish occult favorites Ghost will release their fifth album, “Impera,” on March 11. The band released a video for the record’s latest single, “Call Me Little Sunshine.” On “Impera,” Ghost is “transported literally hundreds of years forward from the 14th century Europe Black Plague era” (of previous album, 2018’s “Prequelle), reads a press release from the band. “The result is the most ambitious and lyrically incisive entry in the Ghost canon: Over the course of ‘Impera”s 12-song cycle, empires rise and fall, would-be messiahs ply their hype (financial and spiritual alike), prophecies are foretold as the skies fill with celestial bodies divine and man-made … All in all, the most current and topical Ghost subject matter to date is set against a hypnotic and darkly colorful melodic backdrop making ‘Impera’ a listen like no other — yet unmistakably, quintessentially Ghost.”
Ghost released the song, “Hunter’s Moon” in September, and the track is also featured in the latest installment of long-running horror film franchise, “Halloween Kills.” Ghost frontman Tobias Forge talked about the album recently with KLAQ: “The album that I have been working on, I came up with that concept years ago. We played in Seattle in 2013, 2014 — something like that — we played at Showbox At The Market. I remember that day I came up with the idea for this record, this upcoming record. Because I got a book called ‘The Rule Of Empires’. So, basically, I wanted to make a record about the rise and ultimately the unescapable fails and falls of empires. And an idea like that can take — at least me — quite far.”
In March of 2020, Ghost introduced Papa Emeritus IV, the character that fronts the band for “Impera.” Forge performed as a new Papa Emeritus on each of Ghost’s first three albums. The 12- song album was produced by Klas Åhlund and mixed by Andy Wallace, and Ghost heads out on a U.S. arena tour with Volbeat from late January to early March.
