“How’s that for a Tuesday evening, huh?” Papa Emeritus IV asks the audience of Los Angeles’ The Forum, after Ghost have stomped and snarled their way through Faith. “I like Fridays way better, don’t you? Can we just pretend that it’s Friday tonight instead?”
It’s not a particularly demanding ask for the 17,500 in attendance, nor the millions worldwide who can now hear this show as a live album. The soundtrack to these melodic pontiffs’ recent feature film, Rite Here Rite Now, is the closest metal has ever come to capturing “that Friday feeling”: joyous, energetic, and with the sensation of exciting things soon to come.
Ghost’s 16-song set, recorded across their two sermons in The City Of Angels last September, emphasises the most exuberant end of their catalogue. While that means the earlier, doomier stylings of Opus Eponymous and Infestissumam are entirely ignored here, the lack of a Year Zero or a Ritual (both played at the shows themselves) is more than made up for by the euphoria of pop-metal anthems like Rats, Call Me Little Sunshine and Kiss The Go-Goat. Papa (AKA band mastermind Tobias Forge) is in enthusiastic form, relishing every cry of “Los Angeleeeeeeees!” as his childhood rock ’n’ roll dreams come true before his eyes, and that energy is returned tenfold by a capacity crowd.
Plus, Ghost’s live lineup pull even more vibrance out of these already magnificent tracks. Watchers In The Sky, from 2022’s Impera, practically soars as a choir of vocalists male and female sing its irresistible hook. Miasma brings out fan-favourite character Papa Nihil for a flashy sax solo, igniting a fever pitch that continues to rage through a slick transition to Mary On A Cross.
After the concert ends with an unsurprisingly rapturous Dance Macabre, the album epilogue comes from new studio track The Future Is A Foreign Land. An upbeat celebration of living in the moment, it’s this band’s first offering of new music since Impera, wetting everyone’s whistle for what’s to come. Ghost have made no secret of the fact Rite Here Rite Now is closing this latest album cycle, and after these 90 minutes of glee, their legions will march into their next era with the biggest grins on their faces.
Rite Here Rite Now (Official Motion Picture Soundtrack) is out now via Loma Vista
