5. Ghost - Infestissumam
It is probably safe to say that over the past couple of years there hasn't been a band who have had as much hyperbole written about them as Ghost. Here is a band who's image gives no clue as to what they sound like; if anything, their veiled cloaks and corpse-painted papal-dressing frontman make you think that their music will be brutal, harsh and even vulgar in it's anti-religious sentiment. On the contrary, Ghost have a doomish, ethereal element to their sound that make them unique for a modern band. I hesitate to refer to them as a metal band, because although their previous effort Opus Eponymous distinctly harked back to 70's occult doom rock with elements of metal influence from bands such as Mercyful Fate and Black Sabbath, their second release Infestissumam takes a giant step away from that sound. It's almost as if the band responded to the skeptical comments from critics who questioned how the band would make their second album as popular as their first; there was a common feeling that Ghost's schtick would wear thin if they tried to replicate it once more, but the band have done anything but that. Infestissumam is filled with a myriad of unexpected sounds, with larger elements of alt rock, some slower, piano based pieces and bizarrely, surf rock. It should not be taken that the album fits within any of those three genres though, as the band manage to mesh together a variety of other sounds that serve to throw the listener off course, from the pipe organ on Secular Haze to the evil, demonic chanting of the names of demons and other fell beasts on the truly epic Year Zero (Belial, Behemoth, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Satanas and Lucifer, just in case you were wondering). The standout track on the album is undoubtedly the closer Monstrance Clock, with its simple but rhythmic beat and massive singalong chorus "Come together, together as one... Come together, for Lucifer's son". If anything, it seems as though in order to negate the potential danger of falling victim to second-album syndrome, Ghost decided to fill the album with as many unexpected and generally incompatible sounds as possible so that Infestissumam distanced itself from the possibility of even being compared to Opus Eponymous - and in doing so, they have created one of the more memorable and delightfully unexpected belters of the year.