The buzz around Ghost only continues to grow. The masked Satanic clergymen have had remarkable success in a short amount of time and their career is still arched skyward as their increasing legions of fans eagerly await the successor to 2015's Meliora. They can now breathe a little easier knowing the band will hit the studio this summer.

A Nameless Ghoul recently spoke with Metal Wani (video below), discussing the direction of the forthcoming full length musically and lyrically. “The ideas for the new record will be 'darker' because it’s thematically set in a darker setting. Meliora was supposed to reflect some sort of utopia / dystopia of modern society, where this new one is gonna be a little bit more apocalyptic in a way, a little bit more back to medieval times," said the Ghoul.

“The idea for this new album is to combine… So, where it’s a record drowned and surrounded and drenched in death, it’s going to be a record about survival," the masked musician went on. "Constantly working with those sort of polar sort of elements is also a difference I guess between… If you find a black metal record that is about the plague and the death you will have only death, everything just is black and everything just ends black."

While the album will indeed be darker, don't mistake this mood for an added sense of heaviness. The Nameless Ghoul was uncertain about how heavy the songs will be, adding, "Obviously we do have melody and we do have songs that are not so heavy, so from my point of view, from where I’m sitting knowing of a little bit of material coming in, it’s going to be both. It’s gonna have everything from heavy crushing metal to big ballady anthems.”

Of course, Ghost have some other big plans on the horizon, namely an opening slot for the legendary Iron Maiden on their North American tour. As exciting as this is, the band is also looking forward to the tour's completion. "We're going to start [recording] for real in August. As soon as we come home from the American tour we're going to start," the Ghoul confirmed. See a list of all upcoming dates at our 2017 Guide to Rock + Metal Tours.

After the release of Meliora, Ghost issued the Popestar EP, featuring a number of peculiar cover selections and a new track, "Square Hammer," which came in at No. 1 on our 20 Best Metal Songs of 2016.

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