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What is the best Ghost album?

Meliora (2015) is widely considered the best Ghost album, combining heavy riffs, pop melodies, and the band’s most complete sound.

Here’s every Ghost album ranked from best to worst based on impact, songwriting, and legacy.

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Mastermind Tobias Forge has evolved Ghost from a raw, occult-rock project into a global stadium powerhouse. With the 2025 arrival of Papa V Perpetua and the sixth studio album Skeletá, the discography has reached new heights of emotional depth and arena-rock glory. We’ve ranked all six studio albums based on songwriting, production, and their impact on the band’s intricate lore. Scroll down to see if the new album took the top spot and where your favorite Ghost era lands.

Ghost Albums Ranked

1. Meliora (2015)
2. Skeletá (2025)
3. Impera (2022)
4. Prequelle (2018)
5. Opus Eponymous (2010)
6. Infestissumam (2013)

The Evolution of the Clergy: A Decade of Ghost

Ranking the discography of Ghost is a monumental task that has only grown more complex with the arrival of their sixth studio album. Each record serves as a distinct chapter in the band’s lore, meticulously crafted by Forge and his anonymous Nameless Ghouls. From the raw, analog warmth of their early Swedish occult-doom roots to the polished, Def Leppard-inspired stadium rock of the 2020s, Ghost has redefined what it means to be a “heavy” band in the modern era. We have analyzed every ritual, every costume change, and every blasphemous hook to bring you the final verdict.

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6. Infestissumam (2013)

Coming off the underground explosion of their debut, Ghost faced the “sophomore slump” head-on with Infestissumam. Signing to a major label brought a bigger budget and grander ambitions, resulting in a record that is arguably their most experimental and psychedelic. While it houses some of the most iconic Ghost albums ranked staples like “Year Zero” and “Monstrance Clock,” the album’s production—often described as “thin” by purists—makes it feel like a transitional piece. It captures the band as they were figuring out how to scale their intimate occult theater into something larger, bridging the gap between basement doomsayers and the arena-ready titans they would soon become.

Key Tracks: “Year Zero”, “Secular Haze”, “Per Aspera ad Inferi”

Papa at the Helm: Papa Emeritus II

The Vibe: Carnival of Souls / 60s Psych-Rock

5. Opus Eponymous (2010)

This is the “Big Bang” of the Ghost universe. Opus Eponymous is a lean, captivating slab of 70s-inspired occult rock that felt like a long-lost vinyl found in a haunted attic. Tracks like “Ritual” and “Elizabeth” established the blueprint for everything Tobias Forge would build: sinister, Satanic lyrics wrapped in impossibly catchy, pop-infused melodies. It’s ranked at number five not because of a lack of quality—far from it—but because the band’s technical ability and songwriting scope expanded so exponentially on later releases. This is Ghost at their most raw and mysterious, before the world knew the face behind the mask.

Key Tracks: “Ritual”, “Elizabeth”, “Stand by Him”

Papa at the Helm: Papa Emeritus I

The Vibe: Blue Öyster Cult / Black Sabbath / Analog Warmth

4. Prequelle (2018)

If Meliora was Ghost perfecting their sound, Prequelle was the album that launched them into the stratosphere. Thematically centered around the Black Plague—a theme that felt strangely prophetic given the years that followed—this record introduced the world to the “charismatic rodent” Cardinal Copia. Forge leaned heavily into 80s arena rock and synth-pop here, trading some of the “spooky” doom for high-energy hooks. From the disco-metal anthem “Dance Macabre” to the progressive instrumental “Helvetesfönster,” Prequelle proved that Ghost could dominate the radio without losing their theatrical edge.

Key Tracks: “Rats”, “Dance Macabre”, “Faith”

Papa at the Helm: Cardinal Copia

The Vibe: 80s Arena Rock / Synth-Pop / Medieval Plague

3. Impera (2022)

Following the plague came the rise and fall of empires. Impera is Ghost at their most maximalist, doubling down on the “Def Leppard” worship with immaculate production and massive, stadium-sized choruses. Drawing inspiration from the Victorian era and the hubris of man, tracks like “Kaisarion” and “Watcher in the Sky” showcase some of the most intricate guitar work in the band’s history. It’s a triumphant, expertly crafted record that solidified Ghost as the premiere theatrical rock act of the 21st century.

Key Tracks: “Spillways”, “Call Me Little Sunshine”, “Hunter’s Moon”

Papa at the Helm: Papa Emeritus IV

The Vibe: Stadium Rock Glory / Neo-Classical / Industrial

2. Skeletá (2025)

The newest chapter in the Ghost saga, Skeletá, is easily their most introspective and emotionally raw statement to date. Arriving with the newly anointed Papa V Perpetua, the album pivots from the grand themes of global empires to the internal struggles of faith, guilt, and identity. The sound remains rooted in the arena-rock foundations of Impera, but with a darker, melancholic edge that recalls the gloom of their early days. The lead single “Satanized” is an infectious powerhouse, while “Lachryma” showcases a level of emotional depth we haven’t seen since “He Is.” It’s a bold, mature evolution that earned its high placement on our Ghost albums ranked list right out of the gate.

Key Tracks: “Satanized”, “Lachryma”, “Peacefield”

Papa at the Helm: Papa V Perpetua

The Vibe: Melancholic Arena Rock / Introspective Doom

1. Meliora (2015)

This is it. The magnum opus. Meliora is the moment when all the pieces of the Ghost puzzle snapped into place with terrifying perfection. With Papa Emeritus III—the most suave and charismatic iteration of the character—at the helm, the band delivered an album that is dark, heavy, progressive, and impossibly grand. From the Grammy-winning juggernaut “Cirice” to the sinister, bass-driven groove of “From the Pinnacle to the Pit,” there is not a single second of wasted space. It perfectly balances their heavy metal roots with their pop sensibilities, creating a sound that is uniquely Ghost. Meliora isn’t just the band’s best album; it is a modern metal masterpiece.

Key Tracks: “Cirice”, “He Is”, “From the Pinnacle to the Pit”

Papa at the Helm: Papa Emeritus III

The Vibe: Art Deco / Futurist / Progressive Metal

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FAQ

What is the best Ghost album? According to our ranking, Meliora (2015) is the best Ghost album. It is widely regarded as their masterpiece for its perfect blend of heavy riffs, memorable hooks, and thematic depth.

How many studio albums does Ghost have? As of the end of 2025, Ghost has released six full-length studio albums: Opus Eponymous, Infestissumam, Meliora, Prequelle, Impera, and Skeletá.

What is the newest Ghost album?The newest studio album from Ghost is Skeletá, which was released on April 25, 2025.

About Ghost

Ghost is a Swedish rock band formed in 2006. The band is fronted by singer and songwriter Tobias Forge, who performs as a series of demonic anti-popes known as Papa Emeritus and Cardinal Copia. The instrumentalists, known as the “Nameless Ghouls,” perform anonymously. Their music blends 70s psychedelic rock with heavy metal and pop hooks, while their lyrics maintain satanic and occult themes, creating a unique and theatrical experience that has earned them a massive global following and multiple awards, including a Grammy.

The post Ghost Albums Ranked Worst To Best — The Definitive List appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Finnish extreme metal band Saasta has released the final single from their upcoming album “Cesspool” to be released on May 8th. “The Coffin” dives into the rotten core of burning out: self-loathing, feelings of inadequacy, and those deep, unspoken roots that force us to sacrifice everything to achieve nothing. This is not just a song but self-destruction on the altar of […]

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Ebert has been charged with attempted second degree murder and first degree assault. Continue reading…

Filmed during their monumental performance at Vagos Metal Fest alongside The Purgatory Orchestra, this special performance captures one of the most ambitious moments in the band’s history, merging crushing metal with powerful orchestral arrangements in a dark and cinematic live experience. The concert served as a special preview of the Hubris album before the pandemic, […]

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Montreal punk four-piece FakeYou are set to release their debut full-length album Promise to Disappear Friday, April 3, on Atlanta-based 59 X Records. Playing on the concept of a “promise to appear”, that formal obligation to show up when summoned, Promise to Disappear explores various forms of disappearance as a means of survival in a world of increasing conformity and homogeneity, whether manifesting as fractured identity, negation of self, or a slow descent into less-than-ideal coping mechanisms. Melding the fuzzy grit of grunge and emo with the zeal of pop-punk and the clever sophistications of alt rock, the punk quartet has created an album that, layered under vocalist Guillaume Menard’s throaty vocals, emerges as a heavy, sincere and ultimately, deeply recognizable treatise on who we are and who we are allowed to be. Powerful, organic and encompassing as any instant classic, Promise to Disappear is one of this year’s standout releases from a band that are quickly becoming ones to watch.

The record settles comfortably into itself with gauzy, mellow opener “Wanderlost”, under hazy layers of guitar propelled by a rolling beat. Caught between disillusionment and alienation, the journeys we embark on as we begin to wander off the path of convention will force us to consider how– and if – we want to be seen.

From there, we are led across the album’s ten tracks through a labyrinthine funhouse of feelings as the band sorts through the myriad manifestations of confusion and pain. Time slows on lead single “Tieluck”, an amber-trapped study of the only holdover in a small town quietly slipping into obsolescence, and spins twilight into an endless day on the breathless, lurching “100 Million Sheep”, rhythmic switches mirroring the uneasy cadence of being tugged in and out of a half-sleep. When it all becomes too much to bear, vanishing acts take the form of refuge in addiction on the beautifully harmonious and deceptively upbeat “Solace”, quick comforts for the desperate and lonely that take a dark and poisonous turn. Our emotional wreckage eventually washes up on the shoes of the jeering, semitonal “Like Helium Balloons”, stripped down to a shouting chorus taunting the listener for having been abandoned by their better angels in a pointless quest for the truth.

Even the record’s more uplifting songs are tinged with melancholy, though no less with meaning. For those suffering the acute pains of heartbreak or burdened by the heavy impress of despair, there is the soft, emo-infused “Midnight Sun”, a gentle reminder that those less-than-ideal moments that make the nights feel endless are not everlasting. Disappearance can be graceful, it seems, when we are allowed to drop the exhausting pretense of perfection and settle a little bit more into who we really are.

Extensive meditations on love, loss and life tend to serve as fertile ground for existentialism, and it all finally comes to a head on the rollicking pop-punk “Spitshine”, from its jaunty opening bass lick through to the throat-ripping chorus outro: the song’s final moments find Menard’s control wrested away from him by his howling alter ego, whatever sensible opinion that might have been had on the meaning of life ultimately giving way to the sweet release of no longer caring at all. It certainly is no antidote, but as we have learned, we tend to take our comforts in whatever form they come.

Each song on Promise to Disappear pulls in a different way at the fabric of what it means to be human, unravelling the threads of personal experience and spinning them into familiar shapes. Love and loss, anger and confusion, the cruel distortions of time, the pains of separation: Promise to Disappear takes the intemporal, intangible, constantly shifting agitation of being alive and weaves it into a common and shareable language that permeates the boundaries of our individual selves, recounting the exhaustion of our endless negotiation with life in a vocabulary common to us all. Menard’s rhythm and LeBrun’s lead guitars twist and wind around each other in an intricate lattice of harmonies and countermelodies that layer over bassist Jay Changizi’s deft and melodious basslines to create a sound that is stunningly lush and deep, the perfect backdrop for Menard’s keen and incisive lyrics. The alternation of heavy riffs with sparse, porous bridges creates a pulse that radiates through the album like a living organism. What results is an record whose bracing depth and vulnerability are its most enduring assets.

From scene veterans with an uncompromising dedication to their craft comes a meticulously crafted and dazzlingly executed debut record. Be sure to head over to the group’s Bandcamp to stream Promise to Disappear or snag a copy of it on gorgeous butter-yellow vinyl. If you’re lucky enough to have a foot in the door of Montreal’s thriving underground, you can catch one of their electric live performances here and in the surrounding neighbourhoods throughout the spring and summer.

The Philadelphia duo Deathbird Earth have drawn descriptions of being a modernized Hawkwind, but they’re more the torrential Hawkwind of a dying planet. Though this central duo was always orbiting around each other in prior bands such as Hulk Smash, Dialer, Psychic Teens, and Ghloas, Deathbird Earth is their first expression of a hellish resource rapture in métallique. They take their first steps into it on their debut album, Objective Consciousness, on April 3, but we’re premiering it a day early. Check it out below. 

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Objective Consciousness is a sci-fi soundscape for those who want more gravitas and can tolerate a little anxiety. “Take My Blood” and “Christchurch 281” open with the orbital sonic vertigo and the record’s doomed lyrical concerns. There is no way up, no way down, and the pressure of the bass and drums tells there is no reason to turn back. “Mission – Planet Y” then builds upon this with a glib but relentless embrace of pulp sci-fi frills and prog structure featuring Yanni Papadopoulous, Philadelphia local of Stinking Lizaveta fame. The long, restless sessions that produced Objective Consciousness have no lack of collaborators as guitar savant Nick Millevoi also features on the eponymous track “Mission: Nick Millevoi.” 

“I’d rather die than never try,” are Objective Consciousness’s watchwords, emerging on “Dead Hands” with a nihilistic response. That doom and noise soundscape, phosphorescent with black-body radiation sci-fi sound cues, is at its best here. Yet, the uncaring cannibalism of “Resources 2.0” makes it the standout track as it shows the machine becoming necessary to navigate the greater interior and greater exterior. Nothing overstays its welcome as the “Time” sequence, which concludes the album, graphs out. These final three tracks, “Time I” to “Time III”, are a lyrical and conceptual statement. Objectuve Consciousness’s abyss-burnt heart, screaming out through a compression-shell, resolves here. Human concerns terminate against an alien philosophy in production. 

The sense of Objective Consciousness, partially glimpsed through the looming cover illustration by Jess Feld, is a Gothic astronaut of twisted form lost in an exhausted urbanscape-overlaid-hellscape. There is a familiarity to the fantasy, but the screams tell this is not Major Tom. Meaningless in the end! But against what meaning? Deathbird Earth’s Objective Consciousness invites the listeners out there (out anywhere!) to explore their own uncanny ruin. Are you receiving this transmission?

–William Pauper

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Objective Consciousness is available April 3^rd via SRA Records.

“In The Name Of The Father” will be out this April.

The post Vomit Forth Sign With Pure Noise Records, Debut “Prophecy Of Defilement” Video From Their Upcoming EP appeared first on Theprp.com.

Former Turnstile guitarist Brady Ebert was arrested on attempted murder charges Tuesday. In a shocking twist to an already startling story, Ebert is accused of intentionally striking 79-year-old William Yates, the father of Turnstile frontman Brendan Yates, with his car outside Yates’ home. The elder Yates told authorities it was one of several altercations between himself and Ebert since the guitarist’s departure from Turnstile in 2022.

The post Turnstile Share Statement On Arrest Of Ex-Guitarist For Attempted Murder Of Singer’s Father appeared first on Stereogum.

Hailing from the darkened cobblestoned corridors of Vilnius, Lithuania, Sisyphean, while black metal at heart, offers much more than the status quo on their newest full-length album, Divergence. First forming in 2012 under the name Division before settling on Sisyphean in 2014, they apply a much more dissonant approach to their riffing without sacrificing the blackened foundations or the essence of a composed song, not to mention the vocals are absolutely venomous. It’s the kind of formula that would be right at home in the repertoire of any number of Icelandic bands–think Sinmara or Svartidauthi–with some Suffering Hour spice thrown in for good measure, and the songs never feel like you’re doing calculus homework. We’re premiering Divergence before it releases tomorrow. Stream it below. 

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Clocking in at 42 minutes, Divergence is easily digestible and goes by deceptively quickly. With that said, it never morphs into background noise or becomes boring; across my several listens, I was struck by at least one standout moment on every song. Among these are the meaner-than-fuck first riff at the start of “Stupor Mundi”, the guitar solo in the back half of “Black Bird That Brings No Joy”, and the explosive first two minutes of “In Divergence.” Zooming out a bit, everything flows nicely. Clearly, Sisyphean had pacing in mind and were laser-focused on maintaining it. Divergence rewards multiple listens and reveals each song’s identity over time, but as a whole, provides a fresh and engaging approach to black metal that never loses its teeth or becomes muddled in its delivery; that, at its core, is still ferocious, razor-sharp, and compelling.

–Eric Wing

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Divergence releases tomorrow via Edged Circle Productions.

“We have no language left for Brady” Turnstile say following shock arrest of founding guitarist Ebert