Single of the Week: Sex, Gender and Satan in Ghost's "Seven Inches of Satanic Panic"
By Madeline Ward
Ghost are one of metal’s most divisive and polarising acts: from persistent criticisms that the band is not “real metal” to its satanic church shtick and marketing scheme that only encourages detractors that are unconvinced of their true authenticity. Seven Inches of Satanic Panic, their surprise new “re-release”, has only complicated matters since its release earlier this week: though the band has made no attempts to hide its cross-genre influences in the past, this EP has transformed their coy flirtation with pop music into an outright affair.
But first, we need to understand how a band that is less than a decade old can re-release an EP that supposedly debuted in 1969.
The Back Story
Ghost are less a band than they are the stage performance for a solo act by swedish musician Tobias Forge. This is by no means a new concept for the genre: influential and infamous norweigan black metal act Burzum was predominantly the work of Varg Vikerenes, though Burzum never toured. Ghost change frontman with every new album- or rather, Forge takes on a new character with every album, creating a succession of satanic papal figures that can be identified with each new release. Added to the mix are a number of nameless ghouls and ghoulettes (ie; the band that Forge tours with), Papa Nihil and Sister Imperator.
If you’re struggling to keep up with the cast of characters thus far, you’re not alone. But there’s more: Papa Nihil is in fact the ancestor of each Papa Emeritus, and Ghost’s current frontman, Cardinal Copia, is ambiguously related to the others in ways that are hinted at but not yet announced. Thus, according to Ghost lore, Seven Inches is in fact the work of Papa Nihil, re-released 50 years after its initial debut.
It’s incredibly cheesy, but it sells records (and pop-vinyl figures, and stadium shows, and lines upon lines of collaborative merch). Ghost are in many senses the closest thing that metal has to One Direction: hordes of screaming, dedicated fans that labour over fan-fictions, reddit threads, art and similar displays of public devotion.
Seven Inches of What, Exactly?
Initially released through their video series, Seven Inches of Satanic Panic is two songs heavily influenced by the psychedelia of the late sixties: sounds reminiscent of Blue Oyster Cult, Jefferson Airplane, The Mamas & The Papas and Pink Floyd can be heard through both tracks.
Kiss the Go-Goat faintly echoes the style of earlier, commercially successful Ghost releases Square Hammer and Dance Macabre. It’s no coincidence that all three are the lead singles on their respective albums: Forge is well aware of the market that Ghost exist in, and crafting dancefloor friendly tracks such as these is a surefire way to earn the band another Grammy nomination whilst toeing the precarious line of heavy metal authenticity with the rest of the album. Mary On A Cross is the track most influenced by Blue Oyster Cult: a nostalgic exercise in the sort of blasphemy that earned Ghost their initial notoriety over nine years ago.
In case the double entendre in the title didn’t make it obvious, Seven Inches is about fucking. More specifically, Seven Inches of Satanic Panic is about fucking Satan. This isn’t new ground for Ghost. Fucking Satan, or more accurately fucking for Satan, is a theme that has appeared in multiple instances across their back catalogue. Ghost has been concerned with the nexus between sex, women and satanism for some time now, though past explorations through their satanic church have been complicated. In the church of Papa Emeritus, women were in roles of dutiful sexually liberated servitude: with this latest release they seem to have graduated to coupling with Lucifer himself. This not to say that Ghost is by any means a feminist band, or that Seven Inches has any meaningful undertones of women’s liberation: but it is an interesting progression from their earlier work.
Where Seven Inches has advanced in thematic complexities, it has regressed in lyrical ones. Kiss The Go-Goat is dangerously close to meme territory, with a first verse that I’m willing to call Forge’s best and worst work:
“You've been daddied
By all the dudes that were not dad
And all of those dads never gave you
The things that you should've had”
The reciting of Satan’s alternate given names followed by blasphemous latin phrasing ( in this case, “osculum obscenum”) in the midst of a key change is a well worn tactic for Ghost, seemingly included here to remind us that they’re Still Metal. It’s not the most subtle of techniques, but in this case it’s so ridiculous that it almost works.
In The Name of Satan
Though Kiss the Go-Goat and Mary On A Cross are missing the lyrical elegance of earlier songs like Monstrance Clock, they’re still incredibly catchy. Ghost may be many things: a pop-metal band, a metal-pop band, a tired gimmick of shock satanism- but they’re certainly not boring, as this most recent release proves. Laughable lyrics and questions of authenticity aside, Seven Inches of Satanic Panic is at least fun, if nothing else.