IMPERA is Swedish metal band Ghost's long-awaited and highly anticipated fifth studio album, with it having been four years since the band's fourth album Prequelle (although they did drop small releases here and there such as the two tracks on the Seven Inches of Satanic Panic single and their incredible cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman"). Admittedly, IMPERA was a bit of a grower for me because I felt lukewarm upon first listen (even though I instantly loved the first two singles "Hunter's Moon" and "Call Me Little Sunshine" when they first dropped). I remember seeing several friends who are Ghost fans saying on release day that the album was beautiful and might have even been their favorite Ghost album yet, and I initially found myself thinking that I didn't quite feel the same way but wished that I did. While I still don't know that I would call IMPERA my favorite Ghost album thus far (an honor that I think still goes to Prequelle), I am definitely absolutely in love with it now and definitely think that beautiful is, overall, a great word to describe it. As is Ghost tradition (with Meliora being the one exception as it opens with "Spirit"), the album opens with a short instrumental intro titled "Imperium"(a word meaning absolute power, which makes sense given the album title being a variation of that and frontman Tobias Forge having revealed ahead of the album's release that the album would be about the fall of empires). "Imperium" is absolutely gorgeous, a slow acoustic piece that builds in intensity and weight as it progresses, eventually bringing in electric guitar and a marching beat. Forge has described it as having a "national anthem opening" quality to it, and I can definitely hear that, especially because of its aforementioned marching beat which also gives it a bit of a militaristic quality. The melody heard via the electric guitar is also repeated again at the very end of the album (which I will call back to when I get there). IMPERA then gives us "Kaisarion" which is my least favorite song on the album. While I by no means hate it, it has somewhat of a punk rock quality to it, and I don't know how well it works here. It also feels a tad too long. Running at just over five minutes in length, it is a bit redundant, and by the time it reaches four minutes or so, it feels like it has already done pretty much everything that it needs to.
Interestingly, whereas "Kaisarion" definitely sets the stage for the album's previously mentioned theme involving the fall of empires (as it addresses, as Ghost often does, Christian hypocrisy and dominion and even directly states in the first verse that "we're building our empire from the ashes of an old" which calls attention to a wheel turning as empires fall and new ones take their place), the next three tracks seemingly veer away from it a bit, with "Spillways" and "Call Me Little Sunshine" (the album's second single which I reviewed here) hitting upon a theme similar to that of Meliora's "Cirice." "All your faith, all your rage, all your pain," fictional frontman Papa Emeritus IV declares in the pre-chorus, "it ain't over now, and I ain't talking about forgiveness." The title of the song (which is recited in the song's chorus) is in reference to a structure that is intended to help release a controlled amount of water from a dam to prevent overflow, emphasizing the song's theme of our souls needing to purge that bottled up darkness (rage and pain). I love the somewhat poppy and retro synthy sound to it (reminding me of Bon Jovi's "Runaway"), making it one of the catchiest songs on the album. We then get "Call Me Little Sunshine" and "Hunter's Moon," both of which I already reviewed since they are the album's first two singles. (Check out my review of "Hunter's Moon" here.) "Watcher in the Sky" is one of IMPERA's heaviest tracks, featuring a thumping and chugging guitar riff following Forge opening the song with the chorus. The song is a bit repetitive, since the main hook ("Searchlights looking for the watcher in the sky") is heard nearly twenty times throughout. In the Metal Hatter interview with Tobias Forge to which I linked earlier in the review, Tobias said that the song addresses the irony of using science to reverse humanity's progress, and fitting the overall theme of the album, it lyrically makes Machiavellian and totalitarian references which makes for a nice transition into the next track as it is titled "Dominion," a short instrumental track Forge described as "majestic." Featuring horns, it also sort of works as an intro to "Twenties," which I already reviewed since it was released as a promotional single ahead of the album's release. (All I will say in addition to what I already said about "Twenties" in my review of it is that I now love it even more than I did then. It might even be my favorite song from IMPERA; the pulsating rhythm of the big band intro is - for lack of a better word - sick.)
I remember when I first saw the album's tracklisting, I thought that "Darkness at the Heart of My Love" sounded like an epic power ballad from the '80s penned by Diane Warren, and that is essentially exactly what it is (sans Warren's involvement). Forge talked about the song with Metal Hammer and said, "This is about people promoting all of these values under the guise of being God-fearing and righteous while they practice none of it. It's just for cash and power." It therefore touches upon a frequent Ghost subject - Christian hypocrisy. As is also often the case with Ghost's music, however, the lyrics can also be heard in a broader sense. As is true of "Cirice" and "Call Me Little Sunshine," this is another example of a Ghost song in which the empathetic speaker is offering his hand to those in need: "When the summer dies," Emeritus offers in the first verse, "severing the ties, I'm with you always..." My favorite line of the song, however, is the following: "Remember always that love is all you need. Tell me who you want to be, and I will set you free." It's a beautiful and epic (epic especially because of the choir brought in late in the song that joins Forge on the chorus) hard rock ballad about sharing kindness, empathy, and love in a world in which there isn't nearly enough of it (hence that darkness that's at the heart of the love; the darkness that the love needs to snuff out). "Griftwood" is another one of my favorite songs on the album, possibly even my second favorite next to "Twenties." I think that it might be the catchiest song on the album, with an infectious guitar riff and chorus, and I also love the rhythm of the verses. It has an arena rock sound to it somewhat similar to that heard in "Square Hammer." Ahead of the album's release, Forge revealed that "Griftwood" is about religious hypocrites such as Mike Pence: "That song's about him and anyone like him who's willing to soil everything they've worked for. They definitely qualify for a front-row ticket to hell which is so ironic because that's what they believe in... He's known as this sort of Bible-thumper believing that he has strong faith, and he's just this awful, awful person..." This is definitely reflected in the song's lyrics which seem to be from the titular grifter's perspective as he makes false promises which he has no intention of delivering: "You want a view from the spire? You want a seat by the pyre and never, ever suffer again?" This could also be seen as in reference to the promise of heaven that Christianity offers, a promise that, according to Forge, would be false.
The album closes with "Respite on the Spitalfields" which is introduced by a very short instrumental segue titled "Bite of Passage." "Bite of Passage" moves gaplessly into "Respite on the Spitalfields," somewhat of a power ballad that does, however, get fairly heavy in the pre-chorus when Emeritus employs a somewhat more aggressive vocal style than usual, probably my favorite part of the song, although I also adore the lyrics of the chorus: "Nothing ever lasts forever. We will go softly into the night." Ghost is no stranger to repeating musical motifs. The melody heard in Meliora's "Spöksonat," for example, is repeated on Prequelle's "Ashes" / "Rats," and here, as previously teased, "Respite on the Spitalfields" ends with the same melody heard on the opening track "Imperium." I have, for a very long time (ever since seeing the 2001 film From Hell), been fascinated by the Jack the Ripper case, and that is what this song is tackling lyrically: "We're here in the after of a murderous crafter," Forge laments in the first verse. "The past is spun like a yarn and mangled with flesh and blood and bones." Tobias did in fact confirm this in an interview with Kerrang! when he stated, "[Jack the Ripper] did the people of Spitalfields and that part of London an enormous disfavor because he was never caught which meant that... they were never sure that he was not going to do it again, so for a long time after, there must have been fear, especially among women, that it could happen again..." The song lyrically addresses that collective fear that unites people, and it's a great song but probably Ghost's weakest closer so far primarily because of its fade-out. When a song fades out at the end, I, for some reason, expect that to lead into something, but it doesn't. As I said, however, I overall adore IMPERA. It's very eclectic, with Ghost at times being in league with Metallica and other times Bon Jovi. I know that some fans didn't like Prequelle because they felt that it was too "poppy," and I fear that such fans must likely hate IMPERA because I think that it's overall undoubtedly the "poppiest" Ghost album so far. I do kind of wish, however, that "Hunter's Moon" had been featured as a bonus track rather than as track 5 because I do think that it feels a bit out of place thematically, and speaking of bonus tracks, I am very surprised that there is no deluxe version of IMPERA with at least one cover included because that seems to be tradition for Ghost, but perhaps that is still to come (as I believe was the case with Meliora).
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