4 keepers
keeper avg .444
Ghost continues their journey into an increasingly poppy brand of metal on their fifth album "Impera." As the previous album's lead-off track "Rats" was the child of Iron Maiden's "Can I Play With Madness" and "Two Minutes To Midnight", the irrepressibly cheery "Kaisarion"**** is certainly the spawn of "The Number Of The Beast" (Iron Maiden, 1982); it depicts the the fall of paganism at the hands of the early Christians, and introduces the album's overall theme of the fall of empires. The heavier, more subdued "Call Me Little Sunshine"***** and closing track "Respite on the Spitalfields" are somewhere between Hysteria-era Def Leppard and 80's Ozzy Osbourne (reference "Diary of a Madman" or "No More Tears"). On the other hand, "Spillways" and later "Griftwood" (the "are you righteous" song) unapologetically emulate the earnest melodies and driving tempos of 80's Bon Jovi. Main Ghoul Writer Tobias Forge, with the help of several outside writers/producers, is doubling down on his transformation into 80's glam metal and loving it.
With "Prequelle" Ghost seemed to anticipate the impending Covid crisis with a concept based around middle ages Europe. Besides the overall theme of the fall of empires, "Twenties"**** somehow foreshadows the class angst and resentment that went into overdrive after the pandemic, though the song was certainly written before it; it's rendered in a weird industrial metal style (Forge has also referenced Missy Elliot), but contains priceless lines such as "Listen up, you motherfuckers, Those Ivy League dopes, they wanna mock us", "We'll be grinding in a pile of moolah!", and "We'll be grabbing 'em all by the hoo-has!"
"Watcher in the Sky"**** combines fast-chugging riffs (I hear Megadeth's "Reckoning Day"(1994)) with arena-ready melodies, while the overly-complex Hunter's Moon most resembles The Killers. Unlike the last album's long instrumental set pieces, Impera is introduced, portioned, and then concluded by short instrumental interludes, which do a better job staying out of the way of the album's momentum; that is except for "Dominion," a rather flabby (however brief) pipe organ segue. The album's only other true bummer is the over-produced Imagine Dragons-like "Darkness at the Heart of My Love," like Forge is trying to tick off all the audience boxes.
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