For Skeletá, Tobias Forge and Ghost turn the lens inward for their most soul-searching record yet. Produced by Gene Walker and mixed by Andy Wallace and Dan Malsch, this is Ghost stripped bare and to the bone. Yes, it’s the kind of grand theatrical rock ritual they’ve become known for, but it’s also something far more personal, reflective, and, at times, disarmingly vulnerable.

Where 2022’s Impera zoomed out to tackle the cyclical collapse of empires and Prequelle conjured the spectral doom of plague-ridden centuries, Skeletá trades the macro for the micro. Each of the album’s songs presents a deeply intimate interior world, moments that feel less like sermons and more like whispered confessions. Think less cathedral and more candlelit back room filled with mirrors.

Frontman Tobias Forge, ever the master of masked revelation, sheds a different kind of armor here. The album opens with “Peacefield,” a soaring, almost defiant anthem that speaks to the desire for transcendence while standing ankle deep in existential muck. From there, the album plunges headfirst into the shadows. “Lachryma” drips with bittersweet melody and emotional ache, while lead single “Satanized” balances its infernal swagger with a surprisingly self-lacerating edge. But it’s probably “Guiding Lights” that hits the hardest. A slow-burning ballad of doubt, hope, and the search for meaning, it’s as close as Ghost has come to a spiritual unmasking. The song doesn’t offer answers, it simply sits with the questions, cradled in lush instrumentation and a voice that sounds both celestial and scorched.

And yet, Skeletá is far from a dirge. The band’s signature blend of arena rock bombast, gothic drama, and prog-tinged pop is still very much alive, just sharpened by a new lyrical focus. Forge’s songwriting has never felt more distilled, his metaphors more cutting, his melodies more aching and triumphant all at once. Thematically, the album arcs like a descent into the self: starting with light, dipping into darkness, and ending not with resolution, but with something more honest… a kind of uneasy peace. It’s not a concept album in the traditional sense, but it still plays like one. The masks may still be on, but for the first time, it feels like we can hear what’s really hiding underneath.