Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Spooktober Edition” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Ritual By Ghost, Album: Opus Eponymous 2010

As Halloween approaches, feel free to ignore “Monster Mash” in favor of this handful of more austere chillers: Vintage murder ballads, dissonant classical spine-tinglers, psychedelic freak-outs, shock-rock creep-outs, Southern gothic alt-rock gloom, art-noise desolation and more.

This is not the longtime (and awesome) Japanese psych band, Ghost. It’s the Swedish band, Ghost. They are dusky, full-on vintage Satanic heavy rock. The anonymous Darkthrone-approved sextet refer to themselves as “a devil worshiping ministry,” rather than a band. We’re told they formed “in order to spread their unholy gospels and, furthermore, trick mankind into believing that the end is ultimately a good thing.” (It’s not?) They also note, “This is Black Metal at its most original and deceiving.” Black Metal in the sense of the Black Arts (or in the sense of a Venom album): Ghost give us very well-done vintage NWOBHM/Satanic ’70s metal with immediate, amazing hooks. Right, the lyrics focus on the Dark Lord, but there’s nothing scary about the music — think Mercyful Fate and old-timey Witchfinder General, but also Blue Oyster Cult and something more pop-rock nasal. Or get acquainted via “Ritual,” the chirpiest song about human sacrifice I know. It’s from the band’s full-length debut album, Opus Eponymous.