October 21, 2023 • 44 mins
Spooky Media Bros 2023 continues with a solo episode from Richie. This time, it's an album review in the form of Ghost's Opus Eponymous from 2010. This year marks the 13th anniversary of the landmark debut from Ghost on Rise Above Records, and Richie is giving it a special track by track look/breakdown along with the story/lore behind it, as well as the making of the album, the signing of the band to Rise Above, and the implications the record had on the band's future.
Check out Ghost
Come check out Gonstposting on Facebook
Grab 'Em in the Brisket
supermediabrospodcast.com
Leave us a rating/review on Spotify, GoodPods, and Podchaser
Super Media Bros YouTube Channel
Facebook:Super Media Bros
X/Twitter: @SuperMediaBros_
IG: @supermediabrospodcast
Founding member of OddPods Media
Check out Ghost
Come check out Gonstposting on Facebook
Grab 'Em in the Brisket
supermediabrospodcast.com
Leave us a rating/review on Spotify, GoodPods, and Podchaser
Super Media Bros YouTube Channel
Facebook:Super Media Bros
X/Twitter: @SuperMediaBros_
IG: @supermediabrospodcast
Founding member of OddPods Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
The super Media Bros. Podcast isa founding member of the Odd Pods Median
Network. Our Father who walch inHell, unhallowed be thy name, Curse
(00:47):
it be the sons and daughters ofthy Nemesis, humar to blame thy Kingdom,
Come Nema. Welcome to the superMedia Bros. Podcast, where two
best friends give comedically informative takes onmovies, music, pro wrestling, and
much more. I'm Richie. SpookyMedia Bros. Twenty twenty three rolls on
with a music review this time ofgoing solo, this being spooky season and
(01:11):
all, I thought this would bea very appropriate album to talk about.
It's actually my very favorite album fromthis band. The album in question Opus
eponymous by Ghost the Congregation aka thefans of this band usually call their albums
sacred Psalms. This Sacred Psalm wasreleased on October eighteenth, twenty ten,
(01:32):
on Rise Above Records. It wasactually released in North America on January eighteenth
of twenty eleven, and then inJapan April sixth, twenty eleven. It
was produced by Gene Walker, whichwas one of many aliases, if you
will, used by the front manof the band. Most people call him
Tobias Forge, which he has gonewith in several interviews, but in his
country of Sweden, it's actually TobiasFortegae. So if you hear me calling
(01:57):
him Tobias, that is exactly whyI'm calling him that, because that's how
it's pronounced. This being my favoritealbum from the band, I am honestly
hoping and I do it justice.So I know there are people out there
listening that are huge fans of thisband, as am I. I'm a
huge fan of this band. Butfor those of you that are unfamiliar with
this group or you have no ideawhat you're getting into, I'm gonna try
(02:19):
to give you as much background onthe making of this album before I actually
jump into a track by track review, because it's, like I said,
it's been a while since we've donea music review on the podcast, and
usually the way we would do it, you know, back in the day,
was we would take it track bytrack and we would play some music
along with it, and you know, just go from there. So to
the making of this album and actuallythe formation of the band. It's wild
(02:42):
because even though Elizabeth, which it'spronounced Elizabeth again, this is another annunciation
thing that I will be rolling withbecause these are how these songs are pronounced,
so bear with me. Even thoughElizabeth was the album's only quote single
and that was released in June oftwenty ten, June twentieth, in fact,
the very beginnings of this band andthis album go all the way back
(03:06):
to two thousand and six, andthe writing and recording all happened around two
thousand and six, two thousand andseven, two thousand and eight, so
roughly a three year span. Toba'shas actually said before that the song stand
by Him, which is the fifthtrack on this album, was the song
that basically started the band. Presumablyin his former band Repugnant, he had
started playing a riff to the restof the group and was explaining that it
(03:30):
was probably the most heavy metal riffthat has ever existed. In his own
words, the chorus to the song, once he started coming up with it,
haunted his dreams, and that everytime he picked his guitar he ended
up playing that exact chord progression.So when he put the words in,
he said that it seemed to callfor like a satanically oriented lyric. And
(03:51):
again this was back in six andthis is whenever they came up with the
name Ghost, and it seemed toall kind of shield together that this was
an entire concept that he could putout, you know, for his love
of you know, opera theater,traditional Scandinavian metal horror films, and then,
(04:12):
believe it or not, the lyricsof that song were originally written in
Swedish. If you jump a littleforward to two thousand and eight, Tobias
had gotten with a former bandmate inRepugnant, Gustav Linstrom, and they recorded
demos of stand by Him, PrimeMover and Deathnell. The songs themselves are
absolutely what drove the band to gowith the theme that they're under now.
(04:34):
The band history is something I won'tget too heavy into because that is absolutely
a topic for another day because Icould probably sit here for a good three
hours just talking about all of that. But Tobias is absolutely the main credited
songwriter, and even then on theearlier albums he went under the pseudonym of
Ghost or a nameless Ghoul, whichevery other band member on stage goes under.
(04:58):
The moniker a name was was Ghoul, But very early when the material
was actually being written, it wasstill just a project phase. It wasn't
like even a full band. Itwas just these songs and a logo that
Tobya's had just scratched together, likethe actual name of the band. He
was just scratching it together, doodlingit. Toby is actually believed it or
not worked in a call center likeduring all this shit, and even in
(05:23):
his own words, he didn't knowshit about computers or any of that stuff.
In his own words, he's justreally good at bullshitting, which I
think is fucking hilarious considering he fuckswith everybody anytime the Pope Emeritus character is
about to be swapped for a differentperson. Again another story for another time,
but we will get there. Sothe band was coming together because of
(05:45):
the material and the lyrics were allleaning into a very dark area, which
again it lends itself to the seventiesdoom metal vibe that this album was starting
to shape up to sound like.And what really sold the look was that
Tobias was sitting there going, youknow, we can't look like this,
and truly, anybody that knows thisband will tell you this. They could
(06:10):
not possibly look the way they doout of costume and do these songs.
I love Tobias to death, andI'm sure that he would say the same
thing. But he's dorky. We'reall dorky in some form of fashion.
He'd never wanted to be in thespotlight, which is why he came up
with the idea of performing under likecloaks or like some kind of hidden identity.
(06:30):
In fact, he didn't even wantto be the front man of this
band. He wanted to be theguitar player. He auditioned several singers and
they all turned it down. Sohe was just, you know, had
that mind like fuck it. Iguess I got to do it myself,
and he fucking did it, whichleads Tobias to, you know, take
the position himself. You know.So jump to March twelve, twenty ten.
We're about to go back in time, you know, MySpace days,
(06:51):
because that's where the demos wound up. And in his words, that night,
my whole life changed because within twodays of posting these demos was contacted
by record labels, and then atthe same time, his older brother Sebastian
passed away like the day those werereleased. If anybody knows the lore of
this band and knows this about hisbrother's passing life, Eternal from their fourth
(07:16):
sacred psalm pre Qul was actually writtenpartially about his brother. But getting back
to Opus eponymous, the album artworkitself, much like all of Ghosts' album
art be it a single, anep a full studio album, is a
reference to a movie. You know. The album artwork for this one is
(07:39):
a reference to the television mini seriesadaptation of Stephen King Salem's Lot. And
it's very obvious when you put thetwo side by side, and I know
that this album is not a lotof people's cup of tea for various reasons,
one of which being the sound quality, which was absolutely a choice,
mind you. The sound quality hadto do with where they were recorded,
(08:00):
how they recorded it with, theinstruments they recorded it with, and also
the fact that they were being drivenby a very seventies doom metal sound,
which doom metal for a lot ofpeople, they think, you know,
specific things, but doom metal backthen was very dark, deep, melodic,
clean vocals. Believe it or not, not a lot of dirty and
(08:22):
screamy, throaty vocals, very cleanand melodic. To me, this album
feels a lot like Merciful Fate,Black Sabbath, you know, things like
that. The guitar RIfS are arevery amazing. But the album itself was
recorded in a few weeks in abasement studio and like a being, I
really hope I'm pronouncing that that towncorrectly or link opping. It was mixed
(08:43):
and mastered at orgone Mastering in Londonby Jamie Gomez Arelano. And speaking of
how it was recorded, they didthe entire thing with a standard Gibson SG.
Just one guitar is the guitar theyused for all the guitar tracks on
here, and it's presumably the sameGibson SG that Tobias used while he played
guitar and Repugnant, And this kindof explains how they were limited as opposed
(09:07):
to Infestiza mom Whenever they got moreof a budget and a different label,
the guitars probably sound out a lotmore traditionally metal on this album. They
played everything through orange amplifiers, whichorange amplifiers kicked so much ass and it
was a thunder verb fifty. Theydid it to get as much of a
seventies vibe as possible. They didn'tlose a lot of the tone or the
sustain, which is really difficult toget out of very dry, like dry
(09:35):
dry settings, especially where they weredoing this. They used one session drummer
and nothing else. Tobias literally recordedmost of the guitars along with Repugnance guitarist.
Tobias did all the keyboards, thebass. He's kind of the jack
of all trades, master of none, and I'm pretty sure he would say
that himself. I should note thatI'm only covering the standard really of this
(10:00):
album when we get to it,because they do have a Beatles cover on
Here of Here Comes the Sun,and it's only available on the Japanese version
of this album. I'll be excludingit only because we're covering what was on
the standard issue of this But thatis an incredible cover that you should definitely
take a look at. But Iwill admit that that cover makes so much
sense going on this album as opposedto just throwing it on there for shits
(10:22):
and giggles. I mean, itabsolutely has its place if you look at
the story. They meant for itto be that way, but obviously it
didn't matter as much to leave iton there if they were only going to
do it as a Japanese exclusive.And I keep talking about themes, so
every Sacred Psalm has a theme toit. There is an overarching story in
the band's lore in the albums,which you can dive deeper into on YouTube.
(10:48):
There's a ton of shit explaining it, but I'll do my best to
give you the theme of Opus Eponymous, which actually directly ties into Infestisiu Moam,
the band's second release. Everything onthis album, Opus Eponymous, is
about an impending doom, a darkness, quite literally, about the creation and
the forthcoming of the Antichrist, thedevil. I should note also that this
(11:13):
being the first album, we're goingto also be talking about the first papa
leader of the band, if youwill, Papa America is the first.
Now, anybody that knows this bandonce again knows that they switch out the
frontman every so often for a differentPapa or you know, at one time,
Cardinal Kopia. I'm gonna go aheadand just drop this bit of humor
(11:33):
in here. I know ghost fansare in on the joke. We get
the humor. There's nothing you couldsay about us and our love for this
band that's gonna deter us from stillgoing forth. You've got to embrace the
fucking cringe. Okay, the wayToby is Forger and Papa go hand in
hand to me, or like AndyKaufman and Tony Clifton levels of bullshit.
And I know, anybody that knowswho the fuck Andy Kaufman slash Tony Clifton
(11:56):
are will immediately recognize what I'm talkingabout. For those of you out there
that have no fucking clue what I'mtalking about, Andy Kaufman was a very
deeply immerse comedian way back in theday, about forty years ago in fact,
maybe even fifty, and he hadan alter ego named Tony Clifton,
who was this really shitty like dickheadlounge singer. But he would go in
(12:20):
full prosthetic makeup and perform under it. And when people started putting two and
two together, oh that's the sameguy, Andy would show up and have
another person in the Tony Clifton makeup. So it was pretty goddamn hilarious actually.
But anyway, during live performances withthe band, he usually performs as
the Papa Americas character, which didnot actually originate supposedly, I have to
(12:45):
say supposedly or allegedly because reasons itsupposedly did not originate with Tobius it actually
originated from a completely different person,and I can't pronounce the dude's last name
saved my life, so I willjust say Peter h. He's also a
former bandmate of Martin Personner, whois a former band member of Ghost This
(13:05):
This person claims to have designed thecharacter in two thousand and five, way
before Ghosts ever formed. He neverperformed as the character and had agreed with
Personner to let him use the characterfor a ghost as a band. That's
kind of the long and short ofit. There's also a direct correlation of
Peter granting Tobia's permission to use thecharacter. But there's way more to that
(13:26):
that you can absolutely read up on, you know, so do with that
information what you will. But thiswas the first iteration of a Papa emeritus
figure. Then he's one of myfavorite papas. In fact, he may
very well be my number one favorite, because I don't feel like this one
gets enough love. This is ofall the papas, we call him Primo
or pe Paul. I know alot of people out there are just like,
(13:48):
why are you giving him names likea lot of elitist people, or
give him names for because it's funthat's what you're supposed to do with this
shit. You're supposed to have funwith it. And the reason we call
him Pee Paul or like, youknow, the old bat, is because
he's fucking old. He's supposed tobe this fucking old guy in a pope
robe, a satanic pope robe,doing all this shit. Dari say he
looked medalist. Fuck. He's probablythe most medalist fuck papa that this band
(14:13):
has ever had. And it's veryinteresting as to how the costuming for this
papa had come together. So theRise Above Records boss Lee Dorian had no
fucking clue what was really gonna happenwith his band. He used to sing
for Napalm Death and Cathedral, whichare two amazing, amazing fucking metal bands.
(14:35):
He signed Ghost only after hearing theirmusic, never saw what they looked
like or anything, and he hejust heard their music on MySpace and he
signed them to Rise Above after aDark Thrones drummer gave them a glowing review.
But whenever Toby has showed up tostart putting the physical material together for
(14:56):
the band, you know, likephotos and you know, shit like that,
he asked for a shitload of moneyfrom the label for a quote robe,
and Lee was kind of like,what the fuck He's like, I
hadn't seen what they looked like.And he kept asking for money, like
more and more of it for thisfucking robe that he needed to have a
photo shoot, and believe this ornot, it actually cost more than the
(15:18):
photo shoot itself, which credit toLee, he said yes, and he
was just like, well, andI swear to god, this is the
quote. He said, fucking hell, it had better be a decent robe.
Then the photos came through, andthe very first photos we saw,
I was like, fuck, becauseit's true. First there is actually the
very first photo of the band,like the promo shot, floating around and
(15:39):
it looks it looks metal as hell. It's so fucking cool. The very
first picture, this picture in question, it was taken by Tobya's his sister
in a friend's living room and justa bunch of random people. It was
Toby's in the Papa Americus get up, but then there was just a neighbor
and then like a friend of hisand somebody else's friend, and they needed
(16:02):
people to be in the ghoul outfitsbehind him, just to make it look
like a full band in a lotof evil dead terms, you know,
for you guys out there that arehorror fans, a lot of fake shimps
in the background. Imagine doing allthis recording, getting all these songs together,
and then you know again, thisall goes back to Toby is you
know quote where he's just really goodat bullshitting. Imagine getting all this shit
(16:23):
together, putting the music out thatgets your band signed, but you don't
have a backing band. Considering youare the band. He's like, you
know what, I'm just gonna I'mjust gonna put some fuckers in some robes
and we're gonna we're gonna shoot thisshit. And they did convincing, very
very convincing. It looks cool ashell. So he winds up publicly unveiling
the rest of the backing band atthe Hammer of Doom festival in Germany on
(16:44):
October twenty third, twenty ten.Now granted this is five days after this
album has released. Okay, Thevery next day they fly into London to
play the Live Evil Festival at afive hundred capacity venue. Yes, the
Hammer of Doom Festival is their firstshow, but their first self booked gig
was the very next day at LiveEvil and the cool thing is both these
performances are on YouTube, and dareI say the Live Evil Festival is probably
(17:10):
the coolest looking shit ever because ifyou put this on and you watch it
and you don't know what to expect, I would have given anything to have
been there for that, not knowingfuck all about this band, because it
looks like a very deep seated,dark, for lack of a better term,
a fucking ritual that you are notsupposed to have any fucking clue as
(17:30):
happening. And it's very secretive,it's very underground, and that lent itself,
I think, very heavily to theimpending lure of the rest of what
this band has become known for.So we're gonna take a quick commercial break
and when we come back, we'regoing to uh, we're gonna get into
the album itself and we're gonna reviewit, and we're gonna break down the
(17:51):
story, the in album story ofOpus Eponymous. You're listening to the Spooky
Media Bros on the iPod Media Network. Don't go anywhere, Hey, this
is Grabbing the Brisket podcast. Joinus every Monday, where we talk about
the latest trends in barbecue, interviewswith world top pitmasters, celebrity cooks ooh
like we Man from Jackass, andmusicians like rich Osool So check us out.
(18:17):
We do beer reviews. Barbecue fails, so many fires do. A
lot of people just burn their housesdown for no reason. We also talk
about cocaine, hippos versus midgators,learn how to make some tailgate gravy,
altercations with Texas Rangers. People throwon recent peanut butter cups. Yeah,
so check out grab the brisket dotcom for podcast info, viral social media
post, and so much more.And we are back and we're gonna get
(18:37):
into the album breakdown and review ofOpus Eponymous from Ghosts. So to me,
this is a very huge and alot of people are like, a
ghost isn't metal. Sure, surethey're not completely metal, but there is
a lot of metal influence and metalin their music. So when I say
that they're a metal band, fuckoff that they be. They can literally
(18:59):
be anything they want to be,and in this era they were metalist.
Fuck I don't give a shit whatanybody says. So this was a very
just It's just a fucking treasure ofan album. Okay to me, this
is very much just a gold mineof like satanic heavy metal, fucking doom
metal. There's a lot of inspirationfrom like probably the first two Merciful Fate
(19:21):
albums, Pentagram, which Tobias hasworn Pentagram shirts, Merciful Fate shirts,
he wears band t shirts somebody he'straveling on tour and just anyway. And
the cool thing is you can pickout music. This album sounds like it
could have been, you know,put over horror films, which a lot
of people are like, hey man, you really think ghost is metal?
(19:41):
They're just Scooby Doude Chase music,which you know what, is fucking great
because you can actually put a lotof the songs on this album over old
Scooby Doo cartoons and it fucking works. So Chef's Kiss. But this album
absolutely echoes the sentiment where metal wasabout mood. I keep emphasizing it.
Metal was a about mood, musicalheaviness, melody, and accessibility. That
(20:04):
is one thing about this album thatdoesn't miss. It's fun. It's very
fun. This album for me,was very instantly likable given the style of
music that I grew up on.I grew up on old like Zeppelin and
Sabbath and Megadeath Metallic. I grewup on a lot of that shit.
It's not leaning into the Mega Deathportion, but I'm giving you what I
(20:26):
grew up on. I also grewup on stuff like The Cure, which
again nothing to do with this,but it just shows you like that was
the time that I was taking musicin. So this album resonates a fuckload
with me. Now. I willadmit that Ghost is less aggressive and much
more accessible than Merciful Fate ever couldhave been, but there's just a lot
(20:48):
of evil vibes on this. Ithink I put this very bluntly in a
conversation with somebody that this feels likethe music version of a snuff film.
You're not supposed to fucking have heardthis or you know, found it,
but that's what it sounds like becauseof the production quality. It's very solid,
it's very enjoyable. There's no screaming. There's a few like deep growls
(21:11):
if you will, but it's notlike the rows you think they are.
They're very much done in the horrorsetting. It feels like even though Elizabeth
was the only single released from thisalbum, I guarantee you that at least
five of the songs could have beenreleased as singles. In fact, most
of these songs were played. Obviouslythey had to have been played, it
was their material in the earlier days, but even by the time their third
(21:33):
album had dropped, they were stillplaying cuts off of this record. None
of the songs are longer than aboutfour and a half minutes, and it's
a thirty five minute runtime overall.But it definitely flies by quickly because it
pulls you in and it's a journey, all right. So let's get into
this album. So, the waywe typically do album reviews in the past,
we have talked about the album's trackby track while some of the music
(21:55):
from said track is playing underneath.I'm taking a big risk here doing this
once more. We haven't done thisfor quite some time, simply because standards
and practices have changed as far ashow music gets claimed on YouTube or even
now on Apple podcasts or Spotify.But I do state that this does fall
(22:15):
under fair use, and I amnot doing this for any commercial reasons other
than to just explain the music itselfand celebrate this fucking band. So let's
go. It starts with the trackdeos Culpa, which is translated to blame
God. Which again, if you'regoing to open your entire discography, your
entire musical catalog with a song calleddeus Culpa, shit's about to get real
(22:40):
because the second track in question,Canclavi Condio is with Nails with God.
And of course I'll be explaining somestory behind each of these songs, which
is is pretty much what this wholething is about. It's about the the
uh impregnation of a sister nun togive perth to the anti crime. Again,
it's a medalist fuck. So basically, we were starting off with this
(23:03):
song deus Kolpa, which it actuallyis a backwards version of a Swedish song
that translates to shine slash Glistening overSea and Shore, which celebrates the Star
of Bethlehem and it treats people tofollow it to salvation. So playing it
backwards is it feels very sinister andI fucking love that. And they're kind
of emphasizing how wrong the spread ofChristianity is to the heretics and how it
(23:27):
is God's fault that the world isthe way it is. So yeah,
it starts off very calming. Youknow, you listen to this and if
you've never heard this before or knowwhat this band is, or don't even
know the genre. It's very soothingin a way, and it's very unassuming.
(23:49):
It's churchy. You're thinking, Man, I'm gonna get taken a church.
I'm gonna I'm gonna experience this,this, this shining light. This
I wouldn't say happy, but itborders on positive, if you will.
But the song daves Culpa actually stopsnot very long hin And then we move
(24:14):
over to Kanklavikondio, which is actuallystill playing in concert to this day,
and to me it is one ofthe most heavy songs in their entire catalog.
With this one, this is kindof where it is the Satanic followers
coming together to express intention of destroyingthe Christian order, which they choose to
carry out acting as unseen beings,challenging the faith of anybody that encounters them.
(24:37):
Their hatred of Christ is demonstrated throughthe lyrics smear the smudge and bleeding
palms, and it wipes away thedivinity as symbolized through the stigmata. So
I mean again, yeah, Iswear to everything that we're getting into some
fucking shit here, all right?This is like a fucking musical horror movie.
In god, I would love toabsolutely see a lot of this Donna's
(25:00):
film. Someday it could be done. You could probably take all of this
band's discography and take the lure fromit and make it a fucking series.
So how do you not headbang toKunklavi Candillo? Now, granted it's a
sped up waltz, but let's saythat guitar riff metalist hell fucking love it.
(25:32):
And when the first lyric is Lucifer, we are here for your praise,
dude, like you know this shit'sabout to get fucking real again.
That song is very much still playedshows, and people lose their goddamn minds
(25:53):
when it happens. In fact,I want to tell a quick funny story
that I believe I forgot to mentionwhen I gave our review of The Reimperator
from earlier this fall, there werefive gentlemen seated behind us that were very
much not aware of ghost whatsoever.They came for a mono marth and when
(26:15):
year zero came up, they actuallyleft. Like hearing everybody chant the opening,
you know, choral arrangement for that. But when Konklavi Candio started and
the Red lightship and the Thurbal cameout with Papa and the middle prayer of
Satanas we are one out of threeTrinity happened. They kind of started getting
(26:40):
like legitimately flipped out. So Ithink that shit is hilarious because it is
very much an act, if youwill, But the way that this band
presents it is so well fucking donethat they're making people that had never seen
them before, even in twenty twentythree be like what the fuck so,
which leads me to the next trackof Ritual, which I feel like Ritual
(27:03):
is probably the most popular song onthis album, which they still play Ritual
live and people lose their fucking mindbecause again it's it's definitely a one point
eighty from Kanklab Candio if you getinto the chorus of the song. But
the actual song itself has such agreat guitar riff to start it, and
in this song, the followers aforementionedin Kanklab Candio are further establishing their cause
(27:27):
and trying to quote pro create theunholy Bastard, which is a lyric in
the song. You know this isa group meaning to summon the Antichrist it's
also highlighting that they're becoming more thanjust a group. They're becoming a Satanic
clergy with ancient texts, chapels,rituals, prayers, things of that nature.
(27:48):
Even in this song, the lyricthis chapel of ritual smells of dead
human sacrifices from the altar. Andit's crazy how hooky and catchy that this
song is whilst containing lyrics like this, which is the thing for most of
this band's catalog. How fun notsinging along to this Okay, legit,
(28:15):
how fun not singing along to thisgoddamn song. This song tends to be
everybody's favorite on the album. It'sdefinitely one of my favorites, but it's
and that's saying a lot coming becausethis album is my absolute favorite. I
don't feel like there's a terrible trackin any other discography or this album in
(28:36):
particular, but it isn't my absolutefavorite on this album. Moving on to
Elizabeth, which is also akin tohow Christians idolize miraculous holy people, and
in this setting, the clergy arekind of idolizing earlier devilish figures like Elizabeth
Bathory, who had legend has itsupposedly would kill and bathe in the blood
(29:02):
of virgins to remain young and toappear young, you know. And this
story has been told countless times whenseveral different mediums. But the way that
the lyric You're still Alive Elizabeth isportrayed is basically like, you know,
she's dead, but the beliefs andthe actions live on through the clergy and
through the people that worship these people. And it's sad to say, but
(29:27):
Tobias can no longer sing this songlive. It's actually out of his vocal
range. And it's a travesty becausethis is actually a very great fucking song
live. But I do get comingfrom you myself, coming from a choir
background and coming from a singing background, you cannot overdo it. Maybe he
can sing this song here and there, but to do it night after night
(29:48):
after night after night on shows andtours that range anywhere from like seventy to
one hundred and forty shows, Like, holy shit, you're gonna kill yourself
doing that. But I still standbeside the fact that it's a fucking excellence.
It's so good, it's so wellconstructed, the harmonies are really well
(30:18):
done. There's even a key changetowards the end of the song during the
chorus, and as far as thecomposition goes, I feel like it's very
underrated in the rest of their discography, it's extremely underrated track. And again
it's a damn shade that they can'tdo it live anymore. And now we're
going to move on to stand ByHim, which I mentioned in the front
(30:40):
half of this episode, is thebasically, it's the beginning of the band.
The guitar riff is what started thiswhole fucking thing off, and stand
By Him it's the clergy basically,the seeking followers, particularly women, and
they kind of highlight the violence ofthe church against people that stand against them,
and they focus on which hunts.There's actually a line from Malice Malificarium
(31:03):
and it regards the quote wickedness offemale sexuality and how as long as you
stand by Satan, you will haverevenge on the Church, and that line
happens to be all witchcraft comes froma carnal lust, which is in women
insatiable. And the way it's saidin this song is very evil sounding and
it's coolest ship. This is aScooby dooish sound I'm talking about. I
(31:30):
have actually seen this song put oversome Scooby Doo cartoons and it sounds and
looks coole as shit. But thissong is very hooky, very catchy,
very well done. This is probablythe most underrated track on this album.
I would venture to say that standby Him, Satan Prayer and Death Now,
(31:53):
which are coincidentally like three songs likeback to back that I just mentioned
on the track listing, are threeof the most underrated tracks on Opus Eponymous
And speaking of Satan Prayer, we'removing forward to that when basically having gained
followers, the clergy is starting tolead the congregation in a prayer for basically
for the birth of the Antichrist,who is going to be at the side
(32:15):
of Satan, inverting the idea ofsitting on the right hand of God sitting
on his left and punishing anybody thatrejects him. Again, the loure gets
deeper and deeper and deeper, andthis is probably the most straightforward lyrically speaking
(32:38):
like there's no mistaking, like no, no, no, no, Here
are Satan Prayer, our Anti Niceand Creed. The song itself is very
cool. There's some awesome sounding synthesizershit towards the end of it that gives
(32:59):
it this other world feeling. Ifeel like with that they were trying to
convey like, here's the audible experienceof feeling this. This prayer actually takes
shape, come to life, cometrue, if you will. And then
it leads into death nail, whicha nail k n e l L is
(33:21):
just a fancy goddamn word for bellor chime, if you will. And
that's another running theme throughout the Ghostis hearing the chimes striking the death nail.
The chimes are mentioned here, theyare mentioned in Square Hammer, and
they're again mentioned in Dance macab waylater, and those are albums that happen
way after Opus Eponymous. So thisis this is where you get the initial
(33:43):
chime. Hell, they even havea bell in the background of the second
verse of the song. But butthis song, it feels like this is
this is where the ritual chamber isto represent the faith of Satan with the
upside down inverted crosses that they mentionedin the very beginning. And this is
the part in the album where thewoman is brought in to be impregnant with
(34:07):
the Antichrist, as evidenced with theAs Victor reaches womb lyric and this is
supposed to mark the end or thebeginning of the end, if you will,
of Christian rules, so that thedeath knail is being wrung to announce
this. And I don't care whatanybody says, this guitar riff is fucking
(34:28):
metal. Like hearing that guitar riffwith the drum pattern and the bells in
the background. I know it doesn'tquote sound metal, probably because of the
production, but look at the riffitself. My god, that is seventies
(34:53):
Black Sabbath sounding shit, and earlyBlack Sabbath was some of the most satanic
sounding shit I have ever hed myfucking life. And I fucking adore it.
You like hearing the word adore andsatan in the same sentence. Come
on, it's spooky media pro season, everybody, goddamn you. You know
we get spooky and evil as fuckaround these parts during this month. It's
(35:14):
not wrong to throw a little hailSatan in there in October. Come on,
So we're gonna move to the lasttwo tracks, which they bleed into
one another. Which this is anotherthing that I love about Ghost. On
most of their records, they're instrumentals. They either bleed into or have a
song that bleeds into set instrumental,and we're gonna move into Prime Mover and
Genesis. So they're not one andthe same, they're two separate songs.
(35:37):
Prime Mover, the Prime Mover isthe mother of the Antichrist, being set
forth into the world pretty much unnoticed, and she is presumably once we're still
as part of a Christian nunnery asher partner. The ritual pretty much brings
darkness upon her. The lyric Averico'sfallis obsessed and poised, her cast a
(35:58):
veil of dusk upon the cloister.This is pretty much the light that was
left in her leaving being the maternalslave that carries the Antichrist. She is
the prime Mover, you know,so she will be setting forth in motion
the Satanic clergy's actions, even thoughthe birth will probably end her life or
her spiritual life, you know.With the lyric with child of her Grave
(36:22):
and again, I feel like thisis one of the most underrated tracks on
this album. It's so damn good. Wish it's insanely good. It's insanely
fucking good, and I seriously encourageanybody out there that's hearing this podcast.
(36:44):
Please check this album out once you'redone, and just give it a good
front to back listen. There aren'tany skippable tracks on here, and that's
not me being biased. I trulyfeel like this is an unskippable album.
I can't listen to this album andjust hear one track on it. I
need to start and I need tofinish it. For me, That's how
I know something is good. Ifyou can capture my attention in the very
(37:05):
beginning and you don't let go ofit until the end, and then I'm
still wanting more. You've done afucking great job on an album. So
let's lead into Genesis, which inmy opinion, is probably Ghost's best instrumental
track, and it's a song thatsignifies the coming of the Antichrist. Basically,
it's supposed to draw in followers ofthe faith and represent the spreading darkness
across the world. And with thatin mind, at sounds like this,
(37:30):
it's once again a sped up waltz. The guitar work on this is really
fun. There's a lot of dualharmony guitars towards the end, the bass
having like a constant triple it rhythmgoing with the drums, and by the
(37:52):
time that this song reaches its crescendoat the end, it leads into an
acoustic which is really wild to thinkabout when it starts with church organs kind
of leading you in and then you'reblasted with conklavi candio and you're kind of
just not letting up on the gasthe entire time that this album is taking
(38:13):
place, and you get to Genesisand you get through the entirety of it,
and then at the end it's areally soothing sounding acoustic strumming pattern and
in a way, again we're notgonna cover the song and play it,
but the song Here Comes the Sun, I would assume was put on here
for being like, you know,it says, here comes the Sun,
(38:34):
like the sky the sun Sun.But I truly believe the tongue in cheekness
of putting it on here would belike here comes the Sun, the son
Sun, the Antichrist being born afteryears of Christian rule and everybody standing against
it can finally bask in the birthof the Antichrist. It's a rejoice if
you will. And again that's asfar as I'll speak on the cover.
(38:57):
Definitely check it out. You canyou can one. We checked the cover
out on its own because most ofthe band's EPs consist of cover songs and
that's what they're man for. It'smuch a simpler album, I feel like,
as far as story goes, comparedto something like pre Kel or Impera.
But this album literally lays the groundworkfor the rest of this band,
(39:19):
and then it follows up with nFestiso mom which I think again it's not
my favorite ghost album. In fact, it sits number five, and it's
not because it's bad. It's becauseit's you know, it's just my least
favorite. But that is such anunderappreciated fucking record that you should check out
as well. But if you havenot listened to this album, I hope
that any of this episode has drawnyou in enough to want to check it
(39:43):
out. In fact, that thisis probably one of the most difficult of
Ghosts releases to get on vinyl becauseit was on Rise Above Records. The
band signed with Loma Vista Recordings afterthis album cycle. In fact, during
a concert in twenty twelve, PapaAmericas the First step down and Papa Americas
the Second took over and thus beganthe tradition of changing Papa's every so often,
(40:07):
which we'll get to whenever we docome back and talk about Infestissimom,
which I do plan on doing inthe future. But this is the genesis,
if you will, of Ghost Andthe album is currently available once more
on vinyl via Rise Above Limited.It's another imprint of Rise Above Records.
(40:28):
They did a five hundred copy pressing. They may have done more, but
when the initial release was announced itwas a Royal Blue variant and it was
limited to five hundred copies. Andit is a repress, and it is
a legitimate repress because it's very difficultto come across vinyl. That's rare,
and people are like, oh,this is repress and it's not even an
actual pressing. It's not officially releasedby the label or the band. I
(40:50):
did get my hands on it finally, because most unsealed copies of this album
and several different variants go anywhere fromlike eighty to one hundred to two hundred
dollars. I've seen it. It'sfucking wild. But if you can get
your hands on it, it's thirtydollars right now. You can check out
Rights Above Records and try to getit through them, or do what I
did, go online and order itand support local businesses and support your local
(41:14):
mom and pop record shop. Ihope you guys enjoyed this review. I
hope I did it justice, andI certainly can't wait to talk about more
of this band's music in the future. They are my absolute favorite band.
I have a bunch of favorite bands, this one is definitely up there.
As a side note, I dowant to talk about something I did here.
I heard this album was once pronouncedby a third party and it was
(41:38):
pronounced Opus Epanimus, and I wantedto fucking die because oh, just just
throw that out there as a littleshort story. I don't really have too
much else to say on the record, so I'm gonna bounce into the closing
of the show and hopefully you guyswill check out more episodes in the future.
So if you want to do that, visit super media brospodcast dot com
(41:59):
from past president future your episodes.Check out all the other shows on the
oddpods media network by visiting onpodsmedia dotcom. Subscribe to us on YouTube,
follow us on social media, leaveus a rating and review at Apple podcast
Spotify, Good Pods, and Podchaser. Especially if you enjoyed this episode,
go talk about it in particular.I have to shout this out because it's
a lot of fun. If youlike shit posting, I know a ton
(42:21):
of motherfuckers out there do. Ifyou like shit posting and you love this
band, you know what GHNST is. If you know what the fuck this
band is and you follow it closely, you know what GHNST is. Okay.
Gnst was a supposed tweet on theband's official Twitter account. It just
says gnst g o NST and itwas quickly deleted and that started an entire
(42:46):
fucking joke on its own. Soif you like Ghost and you like shit
posting, shit Ghost, if youwill please come join Gauns Posting on Facebook.
It's the group that I help addminand we have a ton of fun
in there. It is a placeto celebrate the band. It is a
(43:07):
place to celebrate yourself. It isa place to celebrate humor and just be
silly and just be goofy and embraceyour cringe and all that. So please
come check us out. We havea lot of fun there. Come back
on Halloween night. Spooky Meedi Bros. Traditionally closes every Halloween, so we
won't be releasing on the Saturday.We will actually be releasing the final episode
(43:27):
on a Tuesday. To quote mBison from Street Fighter. For you,
it was Halloween. For me,it was Tuesday. Okay, that was
really stupid, but you get theidea. Come back on Halloween. We
will be reviewing the Five Nights atFreddy's movie from Bluomhouse. Super excited about
this, have been excited about thisfor a long time. I know that
(43:49):
is a completely different fandom than Ghostis, but you know, I've actually
seen some fan art with Ghost andFine Nights at Freddy. So anyway,
I'm gonna shut the fuck up andget out of here and let you guys
enjoy your Saturday morning, your yourSunday morning. Whenever you're listening to this,
I hope you're enjoying it and havinga great time. So come back
next time and check out the finalereview. This has been episode two hundred
and ninety seven Ghost Opus Epotamus forthe Spooky Media Bros. Twenty twenty three.
(44:14):
Until next time, I'm Richie Shade'son. We're off
The super Media Bros. Podcast isa founding member of the Odd Pods Median
Network. Our Father who walch inHell, unhallowed be thy name, Curse
(00:47):
it be the sons and daughters ofthy Nemesis, humar to blame thy Kingdom,
Come Nema. Welcome to the superMedia Bros. Podcast, where two
best friends give comedically informative takes onmovies, music, pro wrestling, and
much more. I'm Richie. SpookyMedia Bros. Twenty twenty three rolls on
with a music review this time ofgoing solo, this being spooky season and
(01:11):
all, I thought this would bea very appropriate album to talk about.
It's actually my very favorite album fromthis band. The album in question Opus
eponymous by Ghost the Congregation aka thefans of this band usually call their albums
sacred Psalms. This Sacred Psalm wasreleased on October eighteenth, twenty ten,
(01:32):
on Rise Above Records. It wasactually released in North America on January eighteenth
of twenty eleven, and then inJapan April sixth, twenty eleven. It
was produced by Gene Walker, whichwas one of many aliases, if you
will, used by the front manof the band. Most people call him
Tobias Forge, which he has gonewith in several interviews, but in his
country of Sweden, it's actually TobiasFortegae. So if you hear me calling
(01:57):
him Tobias, that is exactly whyI'm calling him that, because that's how
it's pronounced. This being my favoritealbum from the band, I am honestly
hoping and I do it justice.So I know there are people out there
listening that are huge fans of thisband, as am I. I'm a
huge fan of this band. Butfor those of you that are unfamiliar with
this group or you have no ideawhat you're getting into, I'm gonna try
(02:19):
to give you as much background onthe making of this album before I actually
jump into a track by track review, because it's, like I said,
it's been a while since we've donea music review on the podcast, and
usually the way we would do it, you know, back in the day,
was we would take it track bytrack and we would play some music
along with it, and you know, just go from there. So to
the making of this album and actuallythe formation of the band. It's wild
(02:42):
because even though Elizabeth, which it'spronounced Elizabeth again, this is another annunciation
thing that I will be rolling withbecause these are how these songs are pronounced,
so bear with me. Even thoughElizabeth was the album's only quote single
and that was released in June oftwenty ten, June twentieth, in fact,
the very beginnings of this band andthis album go all the way back
(03:06):
to two thousand and six, andthe writing and recording all happened around two
thousand and six, two thousand andseven, two thousand and eight, so
roughly a three year span. Toba'shas actually said before that the song stand
by Him, which is the fifthtrack on this album, was the song
that basically started the band. Presumablyin his former band Repugnant, he had
started playing a riff to the restof the group and was explaining that it
(03:30):
was probably the most heavy metal riffthat has ever existed. In his own
words, the chorus to the song, once he started coming up with it,
haunted his dreams, and that everytime he picked his guitar he ended
up playing that exact chord progression.So when he put the words in,
he said that it seemed to callfor like a satanically oriented lyric. And
(03:51):
again this was back in six andthis is whenever they came up with the
name Ghost, and it seemed toall kind of shield together that this was
an entire concept that he could putout, you know, for his love
of you know, opera theater,traditional Scandinavian metal horror films, and then,
(04:12):
believe it or not, the lyricsof that song were originally written in
Swedish. If you jump a littleforward to two thousand and eight, Tobias
had gotten with a former bandmate inRepugnant, Gustav Linstrom, and they recorded
demos of stand by Him, PrimeMover and Deathnell. The songs themselves are
absolutely what drove the band to gowith the theme that they're under now.
(04:34):
The band history is something I won'tget too heavy into because that is absolutely
a topic for another day because Icould probably sit here for a good three
hours just talking about all of that. But Tobias is absolutely the main credited
songwriter, and even then on theearlier albums he went under the pseudonym of
Ghost or a nameless Ghoul, whichevery other band member on stage goes under.
(04:58):
The moniker a name was was Ghoul, But very early when the material
was actually being written, it wasstill just a project phase. It wasn't
like even a full band. Itwas just these songs and a logo that
Tobya's had just scratched together, likethe actual name of the band. He
was just scratching it together, doodlingit. Toby is actually believed it or
not worked in a call center likeduring all this shit, and even in
(05:23):
his own words, he didn't knowshit about computers or any of that stuff.
In his own words, he's justreally good at bullshitting, which I
think is fucking hilarious considering he fuckswith everybody anytime the Pope Emeritus character is
about to be swapped for a differentperson. Again another story for another time,
but we will get there. Sothe band was coming together because of
(05:45):
the material and the lyrics were allleaning into a very dark area, which
again it lends itself to the seventiesdoom metal vibe that this album was starting
to shape up to sound like.And what really sold the look was that
Tobias was sitting there going, youknow, we can't look like this,
and truly, anybody that knows thisband will tell you this. They could
(06:10):
not possibly look the way they doout of costume and do these songs.
I love Tobias to death, andI'm sure that he would say the same
thing. But he's dorky. We'reall dorky in some form of fashion.
He'd never wanted to be in thespotlight, which is why he came up
with the idea of performing under likecloaks or like some kind of hidden identity.
(06:30):
In fact, he didn't even wantto be the front man of this
band. He wanted to be theguitar player. He auditioned several singers and
they all turned it down. Sohe was just, you know, had
that mind like fuck it. Iguess I got to do it myself,
and he fucking did it, whichleads Tobias to, you know, take
the position himself. You know.So jump to March twelve, twenty ten.
We're about to go back in time, you know, MySpace days,
(06:51):
because that's where the demos wound up. And in his words, that night,
my whole life changed because within twodays of posting these demos was contacted
by record labels, and then atthe same time, his older brother Sebastian
passed away like the day those werereleased. If anybody knows the lore of
this band and knows this about hisbrother's passing life, Eternal from their fourth
(07:16):
sacred psalm pre Qul was actually writtenpartially about his brother. But getting back
to Opus eponymous, the album artworkitself, much like all of Ghosts' album
art be it a single, anep a full studio album, is a
reference to a movie. You know. The album artwork for this one is
(07:39):
a reference to the television mini seriesadaptation of Stephen King Salem's Lot. And
it's very obvious when you put thetwo side by side, and I know
that this album is not a lotof people's cup of tea for various reasons,
one of which being the sound quality, which was absolutely a choice,
mind you. The sound quality hadto do with where they were recorded,
(08:00):
how they recorded it with, theinstruments they recorded it with, and also
the fact that they were being drivenby a very seventies doom metal sound,
which doom metal for a lot ofpeople, they think, you know,
specific things, but doom metal backthen was very dark, deep, melodic,
clean vocals. Believe it or not, not a lot of dirty and
(08:22):
screamy, throaty vocals, very cleanand melodic. To me, this album
feels a lot like Merciful Fate,Black Sabbath, you know, things like
that. The guitar RIfS are arevery amazing. But the album itself was
recorded in a few weeks in abasement studio and like a being, I
really hope I'm pronouncing that that towncorrectly or link opping. It was mixed
(08:43):
and mastered at orgone Mastering in Londonby Jamie Gomez Arelano. And speaking of
how it was recorded, they didthe entire thing with a standard Gibson SG.
Just one guitar is the guitar theyused for all the guitar tracks on
here, and it's presumably the sameGibson SG that Tobias used while he played
guitar and Repugnant, And this kindof explains how they were limited as opposed
(09:07):
to Infestiza mom Whenever they got moreof a budget and a different label,
the guitars probably sound out a lotmore traditionally metal on this album. They
played everything through orange amplifiers, whichorange amplifiers kicked so much ass and it
was a thunder verb fifty. Theydid it to get as much of a
seventies vibe as possible. They didn'tlose a lot of the tone or the
sustain, which is really difficult toget out of very dry, like dry
(09:35):
dry settings, especially where they weredoing this. They used one session drummer
and nothing else. Tobias literally recordedmost of the guitars along with Repugnance guitarist.
Tobias did all the keyboards, thebass. He's kind of the jack
of all trades, master of none, and I'm pretty sure he would say
that himself. I should note thatI'm only covering the standard really of this
(10:00):
album when we get to it,because they do have a Beatles cover on
Here of Here Comes the Sun,and it's only available on the Japanese version
of this album. I'll be excludingit only because we're covering what was on
the standard issue of this But thatis an incredible cover that you should definitely
take a look at. But Iwill admit that that cover makes so much
sense going on this album as opposedto just throwing it on there for shits
(10:22):
and giggles. I mean, itabsolutely has its place if you look at
the story. They meant for itto be that way, but obviously it
didn't matter as much to leave iton there if they were only going to
do it as a Japanese exclusive.And I keep talking about themes, so
every Sacred Psalm has a theme toit. There is an overarching story in
the band's lore in the albums,which you can dive deeper into on YouTube.
(10:48):
There's a ton of shit explaining it, but I'll do my best to
give you the theme of Opus Eponymous, which actually directly ties into Infestisiu Moam,
the band's second release. Everything onthis album, Opus Eponymous, is
about an impending doom, a darkness, quite literally, about the creation and
the forthcoming of the Antichrist, thedevil. I should note also that this
(11:13):
being the first album, we're goingto also be talking about the first papa
leader of the band, if youwill, Papa America is the first.
Now, anybody that knows this bandonce again knows that they switch out the
frontman every so often for a differentPapa or you know, at one time,
Cardinal Kopia. I'm gonna go aheadand just drop this bit of humor
(11:33):
in here. I know ghost fansare in on the joke. We get
the humor. There's nothing you couldsay about us and our love for this
band that's gonna deter us from stillgoing forth. You've got to embrace the
fucking cringe. Okay, the wayToby is Forger and Papa go hand in
hand to me, or like AndyKaufman and Tony Clifton levels of bullshit.
And I know, anybody that knowswho the fuck Andy Kaufman slash Tony Clifton
(11:56):
are will immediately recognize what I'm talkingabout. For those of you out there
that have no fucking clue what I'mtalking about, Andy Kaufman was a very
deeply immerse comedian way back in theday, about forty years ago in fact,
maybe even fifty, and he hadan alter ego named Tony Clifton,
who was this really shitty like dickheadlounge singer. But he would go in
(12:20):
full prosthetic makeup and perform under it. And when people started putting two and
two together, oh that's the sameguy, Andy would show up and have
another person in the Tony Clifton makeup. So it was pretty goddamn hilarious actually.
But anyway, during live performances withthe band, he usually performs as
the Papa Americas character, which didnot actually originate supposedly, I have to
(12:45):
say supposedly or allegedly because reasons itsupposedly did not originate with Tobius it actually
originated from a completely different person,and I can't pronounce the dude's last name
saved my life, so I willjust say Peter h. He's also a
former bandmate of Martin Personner, whois a former band member of Ghost This
(13:05):
This person claims to have designed thecharacter in two thousand and five, way
before Ghosts ever formed. He neverperformed as the character and had agreed with
Personner to let him use the characterfor a ghost as a band. That's
kind of the long and short ofit. There's also a direct correlation of
Peter granting Tobia's permission to use thecharacter. But there's way more to that
(13:26):
that you can absolutely read up on, you know, so do with that
information what you will. But thiswas the first iteration of a Papa emeritus
figure. Then he's one of myfavorite papas. In fact, he may
very well be my number one favorite, because I don't feel like this one
gets enough love. This is ofall the papas, we call him Primo
or pe Paul. I know alot of people out there are just like,
(13:48):
why are you giving him names likea lot of elitist people, or
give him names for because it's funthat's what you're supposed to do with this
shit. You're supposed to have funwith it. And the reason we call
him Pee Paul or like, youknow, the old bat, is because
he's fucking old. He's supposed tobe this fucking old guy in a pope
robe, a satanic pope robe,doing all this shit. Dari say he
looked medalist. Fuck. He's probablythe most medalist fuck papa that this band
(14:13):
has ever had. And it's veryinteresting as to how the costuming for this
papa had come together. So theRise Above Records boss Lee Dorian had no
fucking clue what was really gonna happenwith his band. He used to sing
for Napalm Death and Cathedral, whichare two amazing, amazing fucking metal bands.
(14:35):
He signed Ghost only after hearing theirmusic, never saw what they looked
like or anything, and he hejust heard their music on MySpace and he
signed them to Rise Above after aDark Thrones drummer gave them a glowing review.
But whenever Toby has showed up tostart putting the physical material together for
(14:56):
the band, you know, likephotos and you know, shit like that,
he asked for a shitload of moneyfrom the label for a quote robe,
and Lee was kind of like,what the fuck He's like, I
hadn't seen what they looked like.And he kept asking for money, like
more and more of it for thisfucking robe that he needed to have a
photo shoot, and believe this ornot, it actually cost more than the
(15:18):
photo shoot itself, which credit toLee, he said yes, and he
was just like, well, andI swear to god, this is the
quote. He said, fucking hell, it had better be a decent robe.
Then the photos came through, andthe very first photos we saw,
I was like, fuck, becauseit's true. First there is actually the
very first photo of the band,like the promo shot, floating around and
(15:39):
it looks it looks metal as hell. It's so fucking cool. The very
first picture, this picture in question, it was taken by Tobya's his sister
in a friend's living room and justa bunch of random people. It was
Toby's in the Papa Americus get up, but then there was just a neighbor
and then like a friend of hisand somebody else's friend, and they needed
(16:02):
people to be in the ghoul outfitsbehind him, just to make it look
like a full band in a lotof evil dead terms, you know,
for you guys out there that arehorror fans, a lot of fake shimps
in the background. Imagine doing allthis recording, getting all these songs together,
and then you know again, thisall goes back to Toby is you
know quote where he's just really goodat bullshitting. Imagine getting all this shit
(16:23):
together, putting the music out thatgets your band signed, but you don't
have a backing band. Considering youare the band. He's like, you
know what, I'm just gonna I'mjust gonna put some fuckers in some robes
and we're gonna we're gonna shoot thisshit. And they did convincing, very
very convincing. It looks cool ashell. So he winds up publicly unveiling
the rest of the backing band atthe Hammer of Doom festival in Germany on
(16:44):
October twenty third, twenty ten.Now granted this is five days after this
album has released. Okay, Thevery next day they fly into London to
play the Live Evil Festival at afive hundred capacity venue. Yes, the
Hammer of Doom Festival is their firstshow, but their first self booked gig
was the very next day at LiveEvil and the cool thing is both these
performances are on YouTube, and dareI say the Live Evil Festival is probably
(17:10):
the coolest looking shit ever because ifyou put this on and you watch it
and you don't know what to expect, I would have given anything to have
been there for that, not knowingfuck all about this band, because it
looks like a very deep seated,dark, for lack of a better term,
a fucking ritual that you are notsupposed to have any fucking clue as
(17:30):
happening. And it's very secretive,it's very underground, and that lent itself,
I think, very heavily to theimpending lure of the rest of what
this band has become known for.So we're gonna take a quick commercial break
and when we come back, we'regoing to uh, we're gonna get into
the album itself and we're gonna reviewit, and we're gonna break down the
(17:51):
story, the in album story ofOpus Eponymous. You're listening to the Spooky
Media Bros on the iPod Media Network. Don't go anywhere, Hey, this
is Grabbing the Brisket podcast. Joinus every Monday, where we talk about
the latest trends in barbecue, interviewswith world top pitmasters, celebrity cooks ooh
like we Man from Jackass, andmusicians like rich Osool So check us out.
(18:17):
We do beer reviews. Barbecue fails, so many fires do. A
lot of people just burn their housesdown for no reason. We also talk
about cocaine, hippos versus midgators,learn how to make some tailgate gravy,
altercations with Texas Rangers. People throwon recent peanut butter cups. Yeah,
so check out grab the brisket dotcom for podcast info, viral social media
post, and so much more.And we are back and we're gonna get
(18:37):
into the album breakdown and review ofOpus Eponymous from Ghosts. So to me,
this is a very huge and alot of people are like, a
ghost isn't metal. Sure, surethey're not completely metal, but there is
a lot of metal influence and metalin their music. So when I say
that they're a metal band, fuckoff that they be. They can literally
(18:59):
be anything they want to be,and in this era they were metalist.
Fuck I don't give a shit whatanybody says. So this was a very
just It's just a fucking treasure ofan album. Okay to me, this
is very much just a gold mineof like satanic heavy metal, fucking doom
metal. There's a lot of inspirationfrom like probably the first two Merciful Fate
(19:21):
albums, Pentagram, which Tobias hasworn Pentagram shirts, Merciful Fate shirts,
he wears band t shirts somebody he'straveling on tour and just anyway. And
the cool thing is you can pickout music. This album sounds like it
could have been, you know,put over horror films, which a lot
of people are like, hey man, you really think ghost is metal?
(19:41):
They're just Scooby Doude Chase music,which you know what, is fucking great
because you can actually put a lotof the songs on this album over old
Scooby Doo cartoons and it fucking works. So Chef's Kiss. But this album
absolutely echoes the sentiment where metal wasabout mood. I keep emphasizing it.
Metal was a about mood, musicalheaviness, melody, and accessibility. That
(20:04):
is one thing about this album thatdoesn't miss. It's fun. It's very
fun. This album for me,was very instantly likable given the style of
music that I grew up on.I grew up on old like Zeppelin and
Sabbath and Megadeath Metallic. I grewup on a lot of that shit.
It's not leaning into the Mega Deathportion, but I'm giving you what I
(20:26):
grew up on. I also grewup on stuff like The Cure, which
again nothing to do with this,but it just shows you like that was
the time that I was taking musicin. So this album resonates a fuckload
with me. Now. I willadmit that Ghost is less aggressive and much
more accessible than Merciful Fate ever couldhave been, but there's just a lot
(20:48):
of evil vibes on this. Ithink I put this very bluntly in a
conversation with somebody that this feels likethe music version of a snuff film.
You're not supposed to fucking have heardthis or you know, found it,
but that's what it sounds like becauseof the production quality. It's very solid,
it's very enjoyable. There's no screaming. There's a few like deep growls
(21:11):
if you will, but it's notlike the rows you think they are.
They're very much done in the horrorsetting. It feels like even though Elizabeth
was the only single released from thisalbum, I guarantee you that at least
five of the songs could have beenreleased as singles. In fact, most
of these songs were played. Obviouslythey had to have been played, it
was their material in the earlier days, but even by the time their third
(21:33):
album had dropped, they were stillplaying cuts off of this record. None
of the songs are longer than aboutfour and a half minutes, and it's
a thirty five minute runtime overall.But it definitely flies by quickly because it
pulls you in and it's a journey, all right. So let's get into
this album. So, the waywe typically do album reviews in the past,
we have talked about the album's trackby track while some of the music
(21:55):
from said track is playing underneath.I'm taking a big risk here doing this
once more. We haven't done thisfor quite some time, simply because standards
and practices have changed as far ashow music gets claimed on YouTube or even
now on Apple podcasts or Spotify.But I do state that this does fall
(22:15):
under fair use, and I amnot doing this for any commercial reasons other
than to just explain the music itselfand celebrate this fucking band. So let's
go. It starts with the trackdeos Culpa, which is translated to blame
God. Which again, if you'regoing to open your entire discography, your
entire musical catalog with a song calleddeus Culpa, shit's about to get real
(22:40):
because the second track in question,Canclavi Condio is with Nails with God.
And of course I'll be explaining somestory behind each of these songs, which
is is pretty much what this wholething is about. It's about the the
uh impregnation of a sister nun togive perth to the anti crime. Again,
it's a medalist fuck. So basically, we were starting off with this
(23:03):
song deus Kolpa, which it actuallyis a backwards version of a Swedish song
that translates to shine slash Glistening overSea and Shore, which celebrates the Star
of Bethlehem and it treats people tofollow it to salvation. So playing it
backwards is it feels very sinister andI fucking love that. And they're kind
of emphasizing how wrong the spread ofChristianity is to the heretics and how it
(23:27):
is God's fault that the world isthe way it is. So yeah,
it starts off very calming. Youknow, you listen to this and if
you've never heard this before or knowwhat this band is, or don't even
know the genre. It's very soothingin a way, and it's very unassuming.
(23:49):
It's churchy. You're thinking, Man, I'm gonna get taken a church.
I'm gonna I'm gonna experience this,this, this shining light. This
I wouldn't say happy, but itborders on positive, if you will.
But the song daves Culpa actually stopsnot very long hin And then we move
(24:14):
over to Kanklavikondio, which is actuallystill playing in concert to this day,
and to me it is one ofthe most heavy songs in their entire catalog.
With this one, this is kindof where it is the Satanic followers
coming together to express intention of destroyingthe Christian order, which they choose to
carry out acting as unseen beings,challenging the faith of anybody that encounters them.
(24:37):
Their hatred of Christ is demonstrated throughthe lyrics smear the smudge and bleeding
palms, and it wipes away thedivinity as symbolized through the stigmata. So
I mean again, yeah, Iswear to everything that we're getting into some
fucking shit here, all right?This is like a fucking musical horror movie.
In god, I would love toabsolutely see a lot of this Donna's
(25:00):
film. Someday it could be done. You could probably take all of this
band's discography and take the lure fromit and make it a fucking series.
So how do you not headbang toKunklavi Candillo? Now, granted it's a
sped up waltz, but let's saythat guitar riff metalist hell fucking love it.
(25:32):
And when the first lyric is Lucifer, we are here for your praise,
dude, like you know this shit'sabout to get fucking real again.
That song is very much still playedshows, and people lose their goddamn minds
(25:53):
when it happens. In fact,I want to tell a quick funny story
that I believe I forgot to mentionwhen I gave our review of The Reimperator
from earlier this fall, there werefive gentlemen seated behind us that were very
much not aware of ghost whatsoever.They came for a mono marth and when
(26:15):
year zero came up, they actuallyleft. Like hearing everybody chant the opening,
you know, choral arrangement for that. But when Konklavi Candio started and
the Red lightship and the Thurbal cameout with Papa and the middle prayer of
Satanas we are one out of threeTrinity happened. They kind of started getting
(26:40):
like legitimately flipped out. So Ithink that shit is hilarious because it is
very much an act, if youwill, But the way that this band
presents it is so well fucking donethat they're making people that had never seen
them before, even in twenty twentythree be like what the fuck so,
which leads me to the next trackof Ritual, which I feel like Ritual
(27:03):
is probably the most popular song onthis album, which they still play Ritual
live and people lose their fucking mindbecause again it's it's definitely a one point
eighty from Kanklab Candio if you getinto the chorus of the song. But
the actual song itself has such agreat guitar riff to start it, and
in this song, the followers aforementionedin Kanklab Candio are further establishing their cause
(27:27):
and trying to quote pro create theunholy Bastard, which is a lyric in
the song. You know this isa group meaning to summon the Antichrist it's
also highlighting that they're becoming more thanjust a group. They're becoming a Satanic
clergy with ancient texts, chapels,rituals, prayers, things of that nature.
(27:48):
Even in this song, the lyricthis chapel of ritual smells of dead
human sacrifices from the altar. Andit's crazy how hooky and catchy that this
song is whilst containing lyrics like this, which is the thing for most of
this band's catalog. How fun notsinging along to this Okay, legit,
(28:15):
how fun not singing along to thisgoddamn song. This song tends to be
everybody's favorite on the album. It'sdefinitely one of my favorites, but it's
and that's saying a lot coming becausethis album is my absolute favorite. I
don't feel like there's a terrible trackin any other discography or this album in
(28:36):
particular, but it isn't my absolutefavorite on this album. Moving on to
Elizabeth, which is also akin tohow Christians idolize miraculous holy people, and
in this setting, the clergy arekind of idolizing earlier devilish figures like Elizabeth
Bathory, who had legend has itsupposedly would kill and bathe in the blood
(29:02):
of virgins to remain young and toappear young, you know. And this
story has been told countless times whenseveral different mediums. But the way that
the lyric You're still Alive Elizabeth isportrayed is basically like, you know,
she's dead, but the beliefs andthe actions live on through the clergy and
through the people that worship these people. And it's sad to say, but
(29:27):
Tobias can no longer sing this songlive. It's actually out of his vocal
range. And it's a travesty becausethis is actually a very great fucking song
live. But I do get comingfrom you myself, coming from a choir
background and coming from a singing background, you cannot overdo it. Maybe he
can sing this song here and there, but to do it night after night
(29:48):
after night after night on shows andtours that range anywhere from like seventy to
one hundred and forty shows, Like, holy shit, you're gonna kill yourself
doing that. But I still standbeside the fact that it's a fucking excellence.
It's so good, it's so wellconstructed, the harmonies are really well
(30:18):
done. There's even a key changetowards the end of the song during the
chorus, and as far as thecomposition goes, I feel like it's very
underrated in the rest of their discography, it's extremely underrated track. And again
it's a damn shade that they can'tdo it live anymore. And now we're
going to move on to stand ByHim, which I mentioned in the front
(30:40):
half of this episode, is thebasically, it's the beginning of the band.
The guitar riff is what started thiswhole fucking thing off, and stand
By Him it's the clergy basically,the seeking followers, particularly women, and
they kind of highlight the violence ofthe church against people that stand against them,
and they focus on which hunts.There's actually a line from Malice Malificarium
(31:03):
and it regards the quote wickedness offemale sexuality and how as long as you
stand by Satan, you will haverevenge on the Church, and that line
happens to be all witchcraft comes froma carnal lust, which is in women
insatiable. And the way it's saidin this song is very evil sounding and
it's coolest ship. This is aScooby dooish sound I'm talking about. I
(31:30):
have actually seen this song put oversome Scooby Doo cartoons and it sounds and
looks coole as shit. But thissong is very hooky, very catchy,
very well done. This is probablythe most underrated track on this album.
I would venture to say that standby Him, Satan Prayer and Death Now,
(31:53):
which are coincidentally like three songs likeback to back that I just mentioned
on the track listing, are threeof the most underrated tracks on Opus Eponymous
And speaking of Satan Prayer, we'removing forward to that when basically having gained
followers, the clergy is starting tolead the congregation in a prayer for basically
for the birth of the Antichrist,who is going to be at the side
(32:15):
of Satan, inverting the idea ofsitting on the right hand of God sitting
on his left and punishing anybody thatrejects him. Again, the loure gets
deeper and deeper and deeper, andthis is probably the most straightforward lyrically speaking
(32:38):
like there's no mistaking, like no, no, no, no, Here
are Satan Prayer, our Anti Niceand Creed. The song itself is very
cool. There's some awesome sounding synthesizershit towards the end of it that gives
(32:59):
it this other world feeling. Ifeel like with that they were trying to
convey like, here's the audible experienceof feeling this. This prayer actually takes
shape, come to life, cometrue, if you will. And then
it leads into death nail, whicha nail k n e l L is
(33:21):
just a fancy goddamn word for bellor chime, if you will. And
that's another running theme throughout the Ghostis hearing the chimes striking the death nail.
The chimes are mentioned here, theyare mentioned in Square Hammer, and
they're again mentioned in Dance macab waylater, and those are albums that happen
way after Opus Eponymous. So thisis this is where you get the initial
(33:43):
chime. Hell, they even havea bell in the background of the second
verse of the song. But butthis song, it feels like this is
this is where the ritual chamber isto represent the faith of Satan with the
upside down inverted crosses that they mentionedin the very beginning. And this is
the part in the album where thewoman is brought in to be impregnant with
(34:07):
the Antichrist, as evidenced with theAs Victor reaches womb lyric and this is
supposed to mark the end or thebeginning of the end, if you will,
of Christian rules, so that thedeath knail is being wrung to announce
this. And I don't care whatanybody says, this guitar riff is fucking
(34:28):
metal. Like hearing that guitar riffwith the drum pattern and the bells in
the background. I know it doesn'tquote sound metal, probably because of the
production, but look at the riffitself. My god, that is seventies
(34:53):
Black Sabbath sounding shit, and earlyBlack Sabbath was some of the most satanic
sounding shit I have ever hed myfucking life. And I fucking adore it.
You like hearing the word adore andsatan in the same sentence. Come
on, it's spooky media pro season, everybody, goddamn you. You know
we get spooky and evil as fuckaround these parts during this month. It's
(35:14):
not wrong to throw a little hailSatan in there in October. Come on,
So we're gonna move to the lasttwo tracks, which they bleed into
one another. Which this is anotherthing that I love about Ghost. On
most of their records, they're instrumentals. They either bleed into or have a
song that bleeds into set instrumental,and we're gonna move into Prime Mover and
Genesis. So they're not one andthe same, they're two separate songs.
(35:37):
Prime Mover, the Prime Mover isthe mother of the Antichrist, being set
forth into the world pretty much unnoticed, and she is presumably once we're still
as part of a Christian nunnery asher partner. The ritual pretty much brings
darkness upon her. The lyric Averico'sfallis obsessed and poised, her cast a
(35:58):
veil of dusk upon the cloister.This is pretty much the light that was
left in her leaving being the maternalslave that carries the Antichrist. She is
the prime Mover, you know,so she will be setting forth in motion
the Satanic clergy's actions, even thoughthe birth will probably end her life or
her spiritual life, you know.With the lyric with child of her Grave
(36:22):
and again, I feel like thisis one of the most underrated tracks on
this album. It's so damn good. Wish it's insanely good. It's insanely
fucking good, and I seriously encourageanybody out there that's hearing this podcast.
(36:44):
Please check this album out once you'redone, and just give it a good
front to back listen. There aren'tany skippable tracks on here, and that's
not me being biased. I trulyfeel like this is an unskippable album.
I can't listen to this album andjust hear one track on it. I
need to start and I need tofinish it. For me, That's how
I know something is good. Ifyou can capture my attention in the very
(37:05):
beginning and you don't let go ofit until the end, and then I'm
still wanting more. You've done afucking great job on an album. So
let's lead into Genesis, which inmy opinion, is probably Ghost's best instrumental
track, and it's a song thatsignifies the coming of the Antichrist. Basically,
it's supposed to draw in followers ofthe faith and represent the spreading darkness
across the world. And with thatin mind, at sounds like this,
(37:30):
it's once again a sped up waltz. The guitar work on this is really
fun. There's a lot of dualharmony guitars towards the end, the bass
having like a constant triple it rhythmgoing with the drums, and by the
(37:52):
time that this song reaches its crescendoat the end, it leads into an
acoustic which is really wild to thinkabout when it starts with church organs kind
of leading you in and then you'reblasted with conklavi candio and you're kind of
just not letting up on the gasthe entire time that this album is taking
(38:13):
place, and you get to Genesisand you get through the entirety of it,
and then at the end it's areally soothing sounding acoustic strumming pattern and
in a way, again we're notgonna cover the song and play it,
but the song Here Comes the Sun, I would assume was put on here
for being like, you know,it says, here comes the Sun,
(38:34):
like the sky the sun Sun.But I truly believe the tongue in cheekness
of putting it on here would belike here comes the Sun, the son
Sun, the Antichrist being born afteryears of Christian rule and everybody standing against
it can finally bask in the birthof the Antichrist. It's a rejoice if
you will. And again that's asfar as I'll speak on the cover.
(38:57):
Definitely check it out. You canyou can one. We checked the cover
out on its own because most ofthe band's EPs consist of cover songs and
that's what they're man for. It'smuch a simpler album, I feel like,
as far as story goes, comparedto something like pre Kel or Impera.
But this album literally lays the groundworkfor the rest of this band,
(39:19):
and then it follows up with nFestiso mom which I think again it's not
my favorite ghost album. In fact, it sits number five, and it's
not because it's bad. It's becauseit's you know, it's just my least
favorite. But that is such anunderappreciated fucking record that you should check out
as well. But if you havenot listened to this album, I hope
that any of this episode has drawnyou in enough to want to check it
(39:43):
out. In fact, that thisis probably one of the most difficult of
Ghosts releases to get on vinyl becauseit was on Rise Above Records. The
band signed with Loma Vista Recordings afterthis album cycle. In fact, during
a concert in twenty twelve, PapaAmericas the First step down and Papa Americas
the Second took over and thus beganthe tradition of changing Papa's every so often,
(40:07):
which we'll get to whenever we docome back and talk about Infestissimom,
which I do plan on doing inthe future. But this is the genesis,
if you will, of Ghost Andthe album is currently available once more
on vinyl via Rise Above Limited.It's another imprint of Rise Above Records.
(40:28):
They did a five hundred copy pressing. They may have done more, but
when the initial release was announced itwas a Royal Blue variant and it was
limited to five hundred copies. Andit is a repress, and it is
a legitimate repress because it's very difficultto come across vinyl. That's rare,
and people are like, oh,this is repress and it's not even an
actual pressing. It's not officially releasedby the label or the band. I
(40:50):
did get my hands on it finally, because most unsealed copies of this album
and several different variants go anywhere fromlike eighty to one hundred to two hundred
dollars. I've seen it. It'sfucking wild. But if you can get
your hands on it, it's thirtydollars right now. You can check out
Rights Above Records and try to getit through them, or do what I
did, go online and order itand support local businesses and support your local
(41:14):
mom and pop record shop. Ihope you guys enjoyed this review. I
hope I did it justice, andI certainly can't wait to talk about more
of this band's music in the future. They are my absolute favorite band.
I have a bunch of favorite bands, this one is definitely up there.
As a side note, I dowant to talk about something I did here.
I heard this album was once pronouncedby a third party and it was
(41:38):
pronounced Opus Epanimus, and I wantedto fucking die because oh, just just
throw that out there as a littleshort story. I don't really have too
much else to say on the record, so I'm gonna bounce into the closing
of the show and hopefully you guyswill check out more episodes in the future.
So if you want to do that, visit super media brospodcast dot com
(41:59):
from past president future your episodes.Check out all the other shows on the
oddpods media network by visiting onpodsmedia dotcom. Subscribe to us on YouTube,
follow us on social media, leaveus a rating and review at Apple podcast
Spotify, Good Pods, and Podchaser. Especially if you enjoyed this episode,
go talk about it in particular.I have to shout this out because it's
a lot of fun. If youlike shit posting, I know a ton
(42:21):
of motherfuckers out there do. Ifyou like shit posting and you love this
band, you know what GHNST is. If you know what the fuck this
band is and you follow it closely, you know what GHNST is. Okay.
Gnst was a supposed tweet on theband's official Twitter account. It just
says gnst g o NST and itwas quickly deleted and that started an entire
(42:46):
fucking joke on its own. Soif you like Ghost and you like shit
posting, shit Ghost, if youwill please come join Gauns Posting on Facebook.
It's the group that I help addminand we have a ton of fun
in there. It is a placeto celebrate the band. It is a
(43:07):
place to celebrate yourself. It isa place to celebrate humor and just be
silly and just be goofy and embraceyour cringe and all that. So please
come check us out. We havea lot of fun there. Come back
on Halloween night. Spooky Meedi Bros. Traditionally closes every Halloween, so we
won't be releasing on the Saturday.We will actually be releasing the final episode
(43:27):
on a Tuesday. To quote mBison from Street Fighter. For you,
it was Halloween. For me,it was Tuesday. Okay, that was
really stupid, but you get theidea. Come back on Halloween. We
will be reviewing the Five Nights atFreddy's movie from Bluomhouse. Super excited about
this, have been excited about thisfor a long time. I know that
(43:49):
is a completely different fandom than Ghostis, but you know, I've actually
seen some fan art with Ghost andFine Nights at Freddy. So anyway,
I'm gonna shut the fuck up andget out of here and let you guys
enjoy your Saturday morning, your yourSunday morning. Whenever you're listening to this,
I hope you're enjoying it and havinga great time. So come back
next time and check out the finalereview. This has been episode two hundred
and ninety seven Ghost Opus Epotamus forthe Spooky Media Bros. Twenty twenty three.
(44:14):
Until next time, I'm Richie Shade'son. We're off
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!