Ghost Nails A Real Beauty With "Square Hammer"

Right on time for a Halloween fright fest comes Ghost, the Swedish doom metal act that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that none of its members are quite right in the head. The latest track from "Meliora" has fast become a favorite of mine for a number of reasons. For one Earth, the drummer, bangs away right out of the box or, should I say, coffin, since that's the ghoulish aesthetic this outfit tends to be top heavy on. Let me warn you in advance...if you're nursing a wicked hangover this probably isn't going to be your soothing reentry into the land of the living. Ghost pulls out all the stops where pathos goes. Wind puts keyboard fills in precisely the spaces where they achieve the greatest impact, namely during the second verse. We've already been bashed over the head by pulse pounding drumming. Bassist Water's imprints run far and deep all over "Square Hammer". That bass starts from the base (homonym joke possibly intended) of your spine and sends icy chills upwards that pierce the extra sensitive parts of your skull until you're screaming for the mercy you know these gents aren't about to send your way. Fire really doesn't put his lead guitar virtuosity to great use until the bridge where he then lets fly like his own gruesome demise hung in the balance. Ghost does far more than rock out. The Swedes give you the smashing show you'd give your right arm to tell your friends you were a part of. The lyrics remind you that you're not dealing with folks playing with a full deck. How can you claim them to be all there when they open the show tossing off bygone era candy like, "Living in the night, 'neath devils torn asunder. You call on me to solve a crooked rhyme. "As I'm closing in imposing on your slumber. You call on me as bells begin to chime." Then comes the chorus/ultimate moment of truth staredown initiated by the lines, "Are you on the square? Are you on the level? Are you ready to stand right here right now before the devil. That you're on the square. That you're on the level. That you're ready to stand right here right now right here right now. I haven't brought up lead vocalist Papa Emeritus III up to now but I hereby add his name to the mix because this story would blow away on the breeze were it not for the convincing cobwebs in the belfry way in which he conjures up such a sanctuary reminiscent fervor. The man could quite literally raise the dead on the strength of those pipes. It's at the chorus where he really gets down to brass tacks. That's real send the rocket blast through the roof kind of emotion. Earth and Wind are in perfect sync throughout this cut and that, my friends is what makes "Square Hammer" the world beater I suggest that it is. No matter how heavy into campy Phantom Of The Opera over the top parlor tricks the guys get, the opening one two punch is never far from the memory bank. Would I be surprised if "Square Hammer" ended up as the first track on the soundtrack to the apocalypse? Not on your life or, to put it more appropriately, not on your dead. Ghost scares up a dandy one thus hammering home the notion that it's a force to reckon with, Day of Reckoning or not.