On Saturday, shadowy Swedes Ghost played a gig in their hometown of Linköping. Before premiering new song ‘Secular Haze’, set to be taken from their forthcoming album, the group effected a change in leadership, with their erstwhile mysterious overlord Papa Emeritus giving way to a newer, even more diabolical front man, Papa Emeritus II. Watch the succession, followed by the song, below:
While they wouldn’t do something so dull as to give us a hard and fast release date for the new record, they have made the title track available for download – head over to their fancy new website and get yourself cursed here. The band were also recently announced as headliners on next year’s Jägermeister Music Tour, playing a six-date UK tour in March.
In other Ghost news, one of the Nameless Ghouls recently talked to Full Metal Jackie on her radio show about their penchant for anonymity: "Most of our fans are actually quite keen on not knowing, which works to our favor, but I think there is a difference between people knowing who is behind the mask or being unmasked. We can’t really see ourselves going up on stage and afterwards just dropping the masks saying, ‘Oh, it’s me, it’s me, actually. Can you see?’ No, no, no… We don’t want that. We don’t want to spoil it. That’s the whole reason why we are anonymous and we try not to show ourselves. We try to eliminate, not the human aspects, but the humane aspects, if you want. We want to put Papa Emeritus in the limelight. He’s supposed to be the living character, even though rigor mortis has basically set in in his poor old body. But that’s the face of the band. He’s the person, everybody else are just puppets."
