Lachryma: When Ghost went full 80s (and it worked)!

And so, the second single from SKELETÁ has been unveiled along with its music video where we can finally take a better look at V and the Ghouls in motion. And unlike what everyone was thinking, it wasn’t Umbra. It was Lachryma. Apart from the brilliant set design, the multiple costumes we can see V wear throughout the video (and, like a vampire should, he is very menacing with his sparkly wings, hatted get-up or just by himself) and the fact that now they’re an all Fender band when it comes to guitars and bass, we’ve also got what I believe is their best song in recent memory.

The track is heavy, it’s catchy and it’s a textbook example of the Ghost sound with how effortlessly it weaves pop sensibilities with punishing riffs. The verses are the closest Ghost has gotten to that Opus sound in quite a while with the vocal delivery and the driving thump of the bass underneath the ripping and surprisingly heavy guitar riff. That sound of the bass and drums marching together while the guitar riff does its own thing really reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Suicide Solution”, which is also a brilliant track. In fact, I’d be inclined to say this track really feels like a mixture of 80’s solo Ozzy and an evil Phil Collins with how absolutely sweet and earwormy the chorus is. To me it’s the most 80’s they’ve ever gone, especially because of how synth and keyboard heavy this track is. From the opening synthesizer sting to the soft pads that sit underneath the voice during the chorus, they have a very nice retro feel that almost makes me think of Synthwave. It’s going to be a hectic couple of days of having that chorus stuck in my head.

The reception online has been mostly positive, there’s a lot of love for the new singles and deservedly so - they rule. But I’ve also seen a whole wave of people knocking the production on these tracks. From things like calling it ‘horrible’ and ‘dated’ to straight up suggesting they should fire the recording engineer, there seems to be a vocal minority of the listeners that believe this is a complete technical downgrade from IMPERA. I personally disagree. The guitars have never been this crunchy, the bass has never been this much in the forefront and the vocal harmonies are packed extremely tight and discreetly in the mix - never overshadowing the main vocal line.

Lachryma has very quickly become one of my favourite songs by Ghost, period. And I do personally believe it’s a stronger track than Satanized, as much as I love it. This is going to absolutely rip live, I can feel it.