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Tobias Forge of Ghost reveals details of new album

Fans of Ghost will be happy to know the band have been working on a new album. Recently their song 'Hunters Moon' appeared on the soundtrack to the movie Halloween Kills. Tobias has a chat to KLAQ and reveals the concept of the new album.

Forge tells (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET) "The album that I have been working on, I came up with that concept years ago. We played in Seattle in 2013, 2014 — something like that — we played at Showbox At The Market. I remember that day I came up with the idea for this record, this upcoming record. Because I got a book called 'The Rule Of Empires'. So, basically, I wanted to make a record about the rise and ultimately the unescapable fails and falls of empires. And an idea like that can take — at least me — quite far. "

He continues "So once you get that idea of, like, 'Oh, now I know what the pile is gonna look like. I know now what not to put in there.' And it was the same thing with [2018's] 'Prequelle' [album]; it was gonna be about the great death, a medieval, primordial threat of annihilation. I guess I wouldn't say carnal but maybe a tiny tad more spiritual and philosophical death, with the ever presence of actual termination, whereas this record about the empires was gonna be a little bit more practical, I guess; a little bit more, I don't wanna say political. So it wasn't really hard to be inspired by the last couple of years."

Ghost Merchandise

The reference to the book that Forge mentioned is titled "The Rule of Empires. Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall.". Author Timothy Parsons. The book surveys imperial regimes from Rome's rule in ancient Britain to Spain's in Peru, Britain's in India and Kenya, and Nazi Germany's occupation of France, taking an analytical view of each regime.

When Ghost covered Metallica

In other Ghost news Forge revealed to Audacy Check In about covering Metallica songs for the Blacklist album

"I feel that the concept of making covers — and I'm not trying to in any way say that all the songs we’ve covered have been subpar songs that we wanted to fix — but sometimes when you decide to cover something, at least in my world, at least in my head and in my heart, I feel I need to do something to them that either sort of puts it forward in terms of sound, it could be something that simple. Or that there’s some sort of skewing with it," he said.

Tobias mentions Ghosts cover of "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles, which is a happy and cheerful-sounding song that they turned into something dark and "almost nuclear."

"And I think historically, one of the most-covered pop artists, Bob Dylan, the reason why a lot of artists have covered him is not only because the tracks are so good, but it's also because his own versions of his own tracks are usually very, very bare-boned, and they're sort of insinuating the melodies," the vocalist continued.

"As a singer, you just want to sing it out — you want to sort of flesh it out more. The problem with Metallica songs is that they’re so fleshed out, they're so cemented, there’s really no room for interpretation in my head.”