Ghost Bring Swedish Satanic Pop Spectacle to Miami

When I learn a band's origin story before hearing their music, I tend to typecast them. With the band Ghost described as a Swedish act that performs in heavy makeup and costuming with lyrics that often involve Satan, my mind immediately went to Scandinavian black metal. I figured Ghost's music would feature wailing guitars, speed drumming, and vocals delivered in guttural grunts. This mental picture didn't exactly make sense with the added information that Ghost would be playing a huge venue like the Kaseya Center on July 13. Or that their newest record Skeletá is the only rock album to top the charts in all of 2025.

After listening to Skeletá and its 2022 predecessor Impera, Ghost's popularity made more sense in our current sonic soundscape. I heard a much more wholesome sound than expected from a band that dresses in black and cakes their faces in white. It's far less black metal or even turn-of-the-century dress-up shock rock like Marilyn Manson or Slipknot than expected. The theatrical belting reminded me more of over-the-top 1970s theatrical rock bands like Styx or Meatloaf, with a little bit of the clean production of The Killers. I could also imagine each Ghost album being the soundtrack for a Broadway production about a devil-worshipping cult that theater fans of all ages would attend.

Their Skeletour World Tour supposedly shares the insane production values of such a big-budget musical. Online reviews have referenced top-hatted skeletons and ’70s science fiction. To learn about the shows one must go by written accounts or word of mouth. There are very few photos and even less videos of Ghost concerts, as to enter their proximity one must put your phone in a pouch and not open it during the show. According to Ticketmaster, "Anyone seen using a cellphone during the performance will be escorted out of the venue."

This veil of secrecy is something Ghost has encouraged throughout their nearly twenty years. Founded in 2006, their band members were known as Nameless Ghouls. Only their singer was given a name of Papa Emeritus and was later rechristened (or re-satan-ed)  as Cardinal Copia, and later, Papa Perpetua. It was only after an inter-band lawsuit over royalties in 2017 that fans learned the singer's legal name was Tobias Forge.

Forge had previously been a frontman for a death metal band called Repugnant (which sounds exactly like how I described imagining Ghost before I heard them) and a more straightforward pop-rock band in Subvision. With Ghost, Forge seemed to split the difference between his two previous acts. He also followed the Swedish tradition of giving American audiences the music they want.

For a non-English speaking nation that has a population half the size of Florida, Sweden has had a disproportionately large number of hits in America over the years. From the chart-topping pop of Abba, Roxette, and Ace of Base to the more recent behind-the-scene hitmaker Max Martin, Swedes somehow know what Americans want to sing along to. The music writer Tom Breihand described it as "the grand Swedish pop tradition of picking the word that’ll sound the best, regardless of meaning".

Throughout Ghost's songwriting, you can hear Forge follow the beat of this Swedish songwriting drummer. Their most famous song "Mary on the Cross" starts off coherent enough, "We were speeding together/Down the dark avenues". Ok, that makes sense and even sounds a little poetic. The next line his Google Translate starts to malfunction with "But besides of the stardom/All we got was blues". By the time you get to the chorus, you're ready to scream along with the gibberish unsure if you're singing about religious imagery or adult brunch beverages, "You go down just like Holy Mary/Mary on a, Mary on a cross/Not just another Bloody Mary/ Mary on a, Mary on a cross".

Nobody ever said Satan made much sense. So why must Ghost as long as it provides spectacle and pretty pageantry?

Take a look at the setlist from their April 19 show at London's O2 Arena:

Peacefield

Lachryma

Spirit

Faith

Majesty

The Future Is a Foreign Land

Devil Church

Cirice

Darkness at the Heart of My Love

Satanized

Ritual

Umbra

Year Zero

He Is

Rats

Kiss the Go-Goat

Mummy Dust

Monstrance Clock

Encore:

Mary on a Cross

Dance Macabre

Square Hammer


Ghost. 8 pm, Sunday, July 13 at Kaseya Center, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; Tickets cost $47.50 to $177.50 via ticketmaster.com.