Fernando Perdomo 2026 Sunset instability as a strand of space-and-time exploration by esteemed American multi-instrumentalist. has been studying serenity in motion and sparseness for some time now, yet it’s this particular chapter of the composer’s take on nephology that should … Continue reading
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R.I.P..
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1st April 2026
Support: Bau Cat
Words: Cat Finch
This was my first trip to the Artisan Tap in Stoke, and after their much-publicised travel chaos in the days leading up to it, the relief to being back on stage was clear for all to see on the faces of Blackburn’s finest rock export, Sky Valley Mistress.
Having had a brief listen to support band Bau Cat in the afternoon, I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing them, but wow, did they surprise me!! Their atmospheric blend of country, indie and psych, allowed the trio to fully demonstrate their excellent musicianship. With singer/bassist Abby, drummer Jack and guitarist Jim, the North Wales based trio had their own entourage in tow, as they played songs including “Traposhere”, “Conversations with America” and the brilliant “Ordinary People”.
I enjoyed Jims expansive guitar sounds, with lots of whammy bar, and the deep bass lines from Abby, and at times I felt as if I was watching The Monkees or some other 60’s band, Of course, I loved the cowbell from Jack, and after dedicating “Frankie” to a friend from college who was sent down for 4 years, they have a slower love song called “May Your Moon”. Abby asks her nan to give everyone a wave, which she does, as she explains the story behind “Silver Bangle”, which has plenty of groove combined with an excellent rhythm, and they finish off their lively set with “Give it up for the Band”. Their mix of styles, tempo and genres mean that they are well worth catching live.
After problems with the hearse, meaning a few cancelled gigs in London and Derby, it was great to see Sky Valley Mistress up and running on stage. With their unique style of standing opposite each other with Kayley playing the drums and Max playing guitar and kick drum, the assembled crowd were getting ready to be entertained, and we certainly got that in bucketloads.
Having reviewed their latest excellent album “Luna Mausoleum” I was keen to hear the songs live, of which they played 5, combined with older songs and some unreleased ones. Speaking to Max beforehand, they weren’t quite ready to play “Blue Desert II” but they kicked off with “Venom Veins” as his Flying V glistened in the lights. It’s a raucous start to the set with Kayley greeting us with “Good Evening Artisan Tap, we are Sky Valley Mistress and we play rock n’ roll” and boy, do they play it well.
From the first album, they play “Punk Song”, which has a big drum sound, and I enjoy their use of dual vocals, but I can’t help wondering how much Max must concentrate on playing his guitar as well as maintaining the kick drum beat. It’s very impressive and adds to the enjoyment of the gig, as with wonderful songs like “No Sleep”, they have lots of tempo changes for him to keep up with. “Sadly, the hearse didn’t make it, but we did” as Kayley explains more about the mechanical shenanigans, and 5 flatbed trucks they endured before she shouts “Fuck the RAC” in a comedic way.
Leading the vocals in “Nude Bowl” they have lots of melody across the slower song, accompanied by a great guitar solo, before they erupt, making one hell of a racket during “Self Destruction Fuel”. Their charming stage chemistry comes across wonderfully as they are constantly smiling at each other and on the word so during “She is So” there’s an explosive vocal from the duo as the tempos drift and meander in so many directions as all hell breaks loose.
“We are slowly unravelling after spending 30 hours in a freezing hearse and the conversation started to dry up” quips Max before they launch into the tremendous noise that is “Too Many
Ghosts”. The energy is high, the sound is vast and it feels is if they are releasing a lot of pent-up frustration. They slow it down for “The Exit List” before the heavy comes through, and we get Max on keyboard as Kayley speaks through a megaphone.
The kick drum takes a pounding during the rockier “Live Past Life” as they up the tempo significantly, and then dedicate their last song, “Thundertaker” to the hearse. With a doom introduction, the riffs flow effortlessly and it’s a terrific way to end what has been a tremendous set, full of pace, power and good natured anger aimed at the RAC.
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(Andy Synn presents another round-up of cool stuff you may have missed last month) A couple of days ago I promised you a second one of these “Things You May Have Missed” articles… and here it is. Of course, even with double the usual number of bands to cover I’ve still barely scratched the surface […]
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Six studio albums. Five Papas. Fifteen years between a Swedish basement project and a No. 1 record on the Billboard 200. Ghost’s discography is one of the strangest success stories in modern heavy music — a band that has never made the same album twice, fronted by a rotating cast of anti-popes who are all the same guy. We’ve ranked every Ghost album from worst to best, and fair warning: the record that gave them their biggest chart week isn’t the one at the top.
Here’s what makes ranking Ghost different from ranking anyone else.
Tobias Forge doesn’t write albums. He writes chapters. Each record gets a new Papa, a new visual language, a new set of themes, and a wholesale sonic reinvention — and the audience is expected to follow him from occult doom to disco-metal to Def Leppard worship without complaint.
The mad part is that it works. Every single time.
So this isn’t a ranking of six records by one band. It’s a ranking of six completely different bands who happen to share a songwriter, a set of robes, and a group of instrumentalists nobody has ever officially identified.
Let’s get into it.
Somebody has to be last, and the sophomore record draws the short straw.
Coming off an underground explosion, Ghost signed to a major, got a real budget, and immediately made their weirdest album. Infestissumam is psychedelic, theatrical, and genuinely ambitious — a carnival record with Gregorian chants and a title nobody could pronounce.
It also sounds thin. That’s the problem. “Year Zero” and “Monstrance Clock” are stone-cold Ghost classics, and “Ghuleh / Zombie Queen” is a seven-minute swing for the fences. But the production never quite matches the size of the ideas, and the album sits awkwardly between the basement and the arena — too polished to be a doom record, not big enough to be a rock one.
It’s the sound of a band figuring out how to scale. Essential to the story, last on the list.
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
The Big Bang, and it holds up better than most debuts have any right to.
Opus Eponymous is lean, mean and mysterious — a 34-minute slab of 70s occult rock that sounded like a vinyl someone dug out of a haunted attic. “Ritual” is still one of the catchiest things Forge has ever written. “Elizabeth” pummels. “Stand By Him” was reportedly the first Ghost song ever written, and it already had the whole formula in it: Satanic lyrics, impossible hooks, played completely straight.
Why it’s at five: the songwriting scope expanded so far on later records that the debut can’t compete on sheer craft. The back third drags. The production is deliberately primitive.
None of which stops it being the purest distillation of what this band was before anyone knew what it would become.
Key tracks: “Ritual,” “Elizabeth,” “Stand By Him” Papa at the helm: Papa Emeritus I The vibe: Blue Öyster Cult / Black Sabbath / analog warmth
This is the one that broke them, and it’s the most divisive record they’ve made.
Prequelle is a plague album — Black Death themes, medieval imagery, a whole meditation on mortality — and it arrived fronted by Cardinal Copia, the charismatic rodent who wasn’t technically a Papa at all. It’s also the record where Forge went all-in on 80s arena rock and synth-pop, and lost a chunk of the Opus Eponymous faithful in the process.
Their loss. “Rats” is a monster. “Dance Macabre” is disco-metal that has no business being as good as it is. “Faith” is the heaviest thing on the album by a mile, and “Helvetesfönster” is a genuinely progressive instrumental that most bands wouldn’t dare put on a commercial record.
Two years after it came out, the world got an actual plague. Nobody’s ever fully explained that.
Key tracks: “Rats,” “Dance Macabre,” “Faith” Papa at the helm: Cardinal Copia The vibe: 80s arena rock / synth-pop / medieval plague
Maximalism, executed perfectly.
If Prequelle opened the arena door, Impera kicked it off the hinges. This is Ghost at their most enormous — immaculate production, stadium-sized choruses, and guitar work more intricate than anything else in the catalogue. Thematically it’s about the rise and fall of empires, which gave Forge licence to write about hubris, cults and collapse without ever getting preachy.
“Kaisarion” opens the record like a cannon. “Spillways” is a perfect pop-rock song wearing a Satanic hat. “Call Me Little Sunshine” is the best single they’ve released this decade, and “Hunter’s Moon” still detonates live.
It only misses the podium’s top two because it’s slightly too clean. There’s a sense of a band operating at total technical command without much left to prove — which is impressive, and a fraction less thrilling than a band still reaching.
This was also the end of an era. Papa Emeritus IV played his final show not long after.
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
The biggest commercial moment of their career, and the most emotionally exposed record they’ve made.
Skeletá debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — a Swedish occult rock band with an anonymous lineup, outselling everything else in America that week. And the album that did it is inward-looking, melancholy, and largely about guilt, faith and identity rather than empires or plagues.
Papa V Perpetua took over for this cycle, with a half-face mask instead of the full prosthetic, which tells you something about how much closer Forge was willing to get to the surface here.
“Satanized” is an absolute rocket — 80s hard rock, enormous chorus, the most fun single they’ve cut in years. “Lachryma” reaches an emotional depth nothing since “He Is” has touched. And “Peacefield” opens the record with a deliberate note of hope before everything goes sideways, which Forge has said was entirely intentional.
The Skeletour era got its own IMAX concert film, because of course it did.
It’s a bold, mature record and the second-best thing they’ve ever done. One album still beats it.
Key tracks: “Satanized,” “Lachryma,” “Peacefield” Papa at the helm: Papa V Perpetua The vibe: Melancholic arena rock / introspective doom
The magnum opus. It isn’t close.
Meliora is the moment every piece of the Ghost machine locked together at once — heavy enough for the metal crowd, catchy enough for radio, theatrical enough to justify the robes, and produced with a clarity the first two records never got near. Papa Emeritus III was the most charismatic version of the character. The art-deco, futurist visual world was the most fully realised. And the songs are simply the best set Forge has ever assembled.
“Cirice” won the Grammy and deserved it — that slow-burn build into the chorus is the single most effective thing in the catalogue. “From The Pinnacle To The Pit” grooves on a bassline that sounds genuinely dangerous. “He Is” is the most beautiful song this band has written, and it’s about the devil.
There is no filler. Not a second of it. Every other Ghost record has at least one track you skip; Meliora doesn’t.
Ten years on, it’s not just their best album. It’s one of the best metal albums of the century.
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
6. Infestissumam (2013)
5. Opus Eponymous (2010)
4. Prequelle (2018)
3. Impera (2022)
2. Skeletá (2025)
1. Meliora (2015)
Opus Eponymous — October 2010
Infestissumam — April 2013
Meliora — August 2015
Prequelle — June 2018
Impera — March 2022
Skeletá — April 2025
Meliora (2015). It’s the record where Ghost’s heavy metal roots, pop instincts and theatrical ambition finally locked together with no compromise, and it produced the Grammy-winning “Cirice.” Fronted by Papa Emeritus III, it contains no filler and remains the benchmark every subsequent Ghost album has been measured against.
Six studio albums: Opus Eponymous (2010), Infestissumam (2013), Meliora (2015), Prequelle (2018), Impera (2022) and Skeletá (2025). The band has also released several EPs, including If You Have Ghost (2013), Popestar (2016) and Phantomime (2023), plus live albums and the concert film material from the Skeletour era.
Skeletá, released on April 25, 2025. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — the band’s highest-charting album to date — and marked the arrival of Papa V Perpetua as frontman.
Tobias Forge, a Swedish musician who has fronted the band since forming it in 2006. He performs under a succession of characters — Papa Emeritus I, II and III, Cardinal Copia (later Papa Emeritus IV), and currently Papa V Perpetua. His identity was only publicly confirmed in 2017 following a royalty lawsuit brought by former members. The instrumentalists, the Nameless Ghouls, remain anonymous.
Chronologically, if you want the story — the lore runs continuously across all six records and the Papa transitions only make sense in sequence. If you’re starting cold and want the best entry point, begin with Meliora, then Impera, then work outward in both directions.
Six albums, five Papas, and one Grammy-winning masterpiece that still hasn’t been topped. Think we got Skeletá wrong, or is Meliora untouchable? Settle it in the comments. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
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