Music

Ghost unveil vocalist Papa Emeritus II, new song "Secular Haze"

by Tyler Munro

With their anonymous makeup and Mercyful Fate meets Blue Oyster Cult sound, Ghost might be the most interesting band in the current heavy metal landscape. And this weekend, things got even weirder.

The band had been slowly unveiling bits of their new song “Secular Haze” online, tossing different instrumental tracks on a new website before releasing the song in full yesterday (it actually dropped first on Reddit after developers hit a quick hitch with the e-mail delivery system).

But because releasing a new song and calling it a day is far too by the books, Ghost took the track as an opportunity to introduce their new singer, who is probably still the same guy as their old singer, only we don’t know who that is.

Here’s how it happened: on stage in Sweden this past weekend, they ran through a quick ceremony of sorts — the stage faded to black and Papa Emeritus II was introduced. Vocally it’s obviously the same guy behind Papa Emeritus I, so they likely had a decoy on stage to pull off the transition, but that doesn’t change the fact that these guys are bringing the spectacle back to the genre in the most incredible way. Watch the live video up top: it might be better than the studio run-through (below).

You can download the track here.