Review Summary: The nostalgia trip...to HELL!
The problem with gimmicks is that they have a shelf life. Just ask any of the retro-rock darlings of the class of ’03. The Darkness, Wolfmother and Jet all burst onto the scene by resurrecting the '60s and '70s, both in sound and image, and shot to the top of the charts before falling into obscurity once the nostalgia faded. Fast-forward a decade and you’ll find Ghost B.C. (just Ghost to the non-Americans) taking more or less the same trip, but with a twist: they “worship” Beelzebub, you see.
Infestissumam is filled with all kinds of over-the-top '70s goodness, from baroque bel canto chorales to sunny harmonies to noodly Blackmore-esque guitar leads and the all-important ever-present Moog synthesizer. The music is ripped right out of the Deep Purple playbook, but is accompanied by an affinity for amusingly grotesque satanic imagery in the lyrics, artwork and stage accoutrement of the band. The identity of the band members remains as closely guarded as ever, but, in this post-Black Metal day and age, the gimmick serves more as parody of the tropes of “Satanic Heavy Metal” than full-blown identification with the archetype.
Recording a retro record, even with the Satanic twist, is as limiting as it is refreshing. The '70s inevitably became the '80s and music moved in different directions. Ghost is therefore inherently limited in what they can accomplish through
Infestissumam. However, gimmick aside, the band delivers a solid album that is chock-full of catchy vocal, guitar and keyboard melodies threaded through proto-prog-rock song structures.
The one '70s trope that is subverted is the instrumental noodling which, while present, is never excessive. The epic
Ghuleh is the longest song on the record at 7 and a half minutes, while most of the other songs are between 4 and 6 minutes long, despite having several instrumental solos. This conciseness in composition makes the album pass faster than one realizes and is quite refreshing for an album of this sort. The album has no real barn-burners in terms of tempo with the possible exception of
Per Aspera part 2, which is the most “metallic” song on the album. Most of the songs, such as
Jigolo Har Megdido,
Idolatrine,
Body in Blood,
Depths of Satan’s Eyes and
Monstrance Clock are built around guitar-and-drum stomps, while
Secular Haze is built around a dancing carnival organ piece.
The absolute high-point of the album is without a doubt
Year Zero, which features choir interjections, harmonized verses that build perfectly to soaring choruses, and an utterly irresistible disco backbeat. Elsewhere on the album there are moments of brilliance such as the ebb and flow on
Ghuleh , the terrifically demented combination of cheery vocals and black-and-white horror movie organ melody on the amusingly titled
Idolatrine, and the guitar and keyboard contra-punctuation on the intro of
Depths of Satan’s Eyes. While the strongest card the band plays is their talent for writing tunes that evoke their idols while moving just unpredictably enough to be unique, they occasionally band settle too much for idolatry and end up sounding like a Blue-Oyster Cult reunion.
Ultimately, the album, despite its
prima facie heavy subject matter, is a bit of light-hearted disposable fun. It’s hard to tell how long the band’s gimmick of Lucifer-worshipping '70s rock will remain novel but, while the novelty lasts, this nostalgia trip is certainly a fun ride.
Highlights:
Year Zero
Ghuleh / Zombie Queen
