Ghost’s success is built on theatrical blasphemy, winking provocation and some blockbusting tunes. The masked Swedes’ third covers EP ticks all three boxes, even if the tunes belong to someone else.
As always, singer and conceptual mastermind Tobias Forge has chosen five songs that fit his band’s worldview while fusing their musical DNA with his own.
Genesis’ anti-televangelist broadside Jesus He Knows Me becomes a high-camp retro-metal anthem, Forge amplifies the Easter-based gag in The Stranglers’ Hanging Around, and his epic update of Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero is crying out for someone to remake Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome so it can appear on the soundtrack.
It doesn’t always work (their take on Television’s See No Evil is heavy-handed, while Iron Maiden’s Phantom Of The Opera is too respectful), but mostly it’s devilishly good fun.