From the Pinnacle to the Pit

The riff does the work before anyone walks onstage. One of the Nameless Ghouls said this song was “Led Zeppelin-style” and “something that would sound great coming out of a car stereo in an American high school parking lot.” Both things are true. The chorus is direct. The song does not require the theatrical setup, the papal costuming, or the smoke machines. It stands on the riff alone. Ghost understood something other metal bands did not. The pageantry is a wrapper. The song underneath it is just rock.

To record Meliora, Ghost hired Klas Åhlund. Åhlund had produced Robyn, Madonna, and Britney Spears. He had never made a heavy metal record. Ghost chose him anyway, saying he would bring angles a more established rock producer would not. The sessions ran across four studios in Hollywood and Stockholm. The guitars were tracked through twelve amplifiers. Andy Wallace mixed it. The single dropped July 17, 2015 as a free download with the Meliora preorder. A pop producer. Twelve amplifiers. Ghost made the record they intended to make.

The music video was directed by Zev Deans. It used footage from a 1930 Cecil B. DeMille film and a 1949 educational short, stitching them into the origin story of Papa Emeritus III. At the time, no one outside the band knew that Papa Emeritus was Tobias Forge. The band performed entirely anonymously. Meliora debuted at number eight on the Billboard 200. The album hit number one in Sweden and Finland and number two on the UK Rock and Metal chart. It was Ghost’s commercial breakthrough. Two years later, a lawsuit from former band members ended the anonymity. The face came out. The riff was already what it was.