The interest in occult heavy rock heavily influenced by the 70’s keeps on growing and successful bands like The Devil’s Blood and Jex Thoth are followed by other bands. Both musicians as well as labels see possibilities to cash in on this hype. Notwithstanding the fact Swedish 6-man formation Ghost try to hide their identity it kind of is out of the bag that this band was formed by guys related to bands like Watain and Repugnant triggered by the success and the music of The Devil’s Blood. After one demo German label iron Pegasus released a 7” EP after which Rise Above Records, one of the leading labels in this genre, quickly responded by signing Ghost. The result, a full-length on CD as well as various coloured vinyl LP’s.
The musical roots of Ghost can be found in (progressive) 70’s heavy rock but they also clearly are influenced by Mercyful Fate’s early work, although they are not as heavy as this Danish band. The recordings sound really good and for the current generation of fans of this genre this is a very good album. Those who look a bit further into Ghost will see a big contingent of opponents to this band, something that happened to the Devil’s Blood too. One of the reproaches towards Ghost is that they blatantly steal too easily. The cover artwork come straight from the movie poster of Salem’s Lot and musically the riff in the song ‘Ritual’ is similar to the opening riff in the Megadeth song ‘Symphony Of Destruction’, but played slower. The song ‘Death Knell’ apparently has a lot of similarities to the song ‘Solution’ from the band Icecross from 1973.
It’s not my duty to blame the band, I just name a few things that came to light, and I think that most music fans couldn’t care less. When you see ‘Opus Eponymus’ as a product on itself you can’t by-pass the quality, that’s a fact. As a matter of taste you can denounce this as garbage, but to fans of the aforementioned bands The Devil’s Blood, Jex Thoth, Witchcraft and so on this album is compulsory.
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