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What’s the story?
Swedish metal band Ghost today released their video for Dance Macabre, a song to be featured on their upcoming album Prequelle.
However, the video was a little different from their usual outings, in that it had some familiar faces rocking out to the tune selfie-style - notably former WWE Champion Chris Jericho and NXT Champion Aleister Black.
In case you didn’t know…
Ghost are somewhat of an enigma, but alongside Y2J and Black, Ghost have another WWE Superstar among their fans in Baron Corbin.
The band have also previously been featured as an #NXTLoud artist with Square Hammer being used for TakeOver.
The unique thing about Ghost is their anonymity. Ghost is made up of a singer named Cardinal Copia, who took over from Papa Emeritus III, the third incarnation of the frontman of the band, this year.
Cardinal Copia himself is also somewhat of an enigma - and is a slight change from the previous three frontmen who all resembled, well, a dead pope, each one younger than the last.
The other members of the band? Oh, they're anonymous demonic figures who wear masks and call themselves Nameless Ghouls.
The band are described as "heavy metal" - but they're essentially nothing you would think of from a metal band.
They've won a Grammy, and while there are heavy riffs aplenty, their theatrical stage show is met by a soundtrack closer to that of a prog rock outfit.
Ghost emerged from Linköping, Sweden in 2006, and while albums Opus Eponymous and Infestissumam gained the band a cult army of followers, with the latter even debuted at number one in Sweden, and winning the Grammis Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Album, it was the band's third studio album, Meliora, in 2015, that thrust the band into the limelight of mainstream rock, hitting number one in Sweden, and number eight in the United States.
Meliora's lead single, "Cirice", earned them the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.
The heart of the matter
Today, Ghost released Dance Macabre via Instagram stories, with the song then hitting Spotify and subsequently Facebook and YouTube.
Ghost's videos are usually very theatrical with a clear narrative, but this one was very different. It featured several familiar faces in the video rocking out to the song - notably Jericho, who has his own rock band in Fozzy, and Black, the NXT Champion who has made no bones about his love of metal music.
Other appearances in the video include Pantera's Phil Anselmo, Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Avenged Sevenfold's M Shadows.
You can see the entire video below.
Baron Corbin spoke of his love of the band on Talk Is Jericho to Y2J, and to Metal Injection, in the video below.
What’s next?
Ghost's latest album Prequelle will be released on June 1st.
As for Black, he's currently defending his NXT Championship on WWE Live shows across Europe and will be appearing at Download Festival in the UK in June.
Jericho is also heading to Europe where his one-man show will be hitting the UK next week.
Meanwhile, WWE have also posted their take on the new video here.
Author’s take
Well, I am a HUGE Ghost fan and I knew nothing about this, so this was an awesome surprise for me when I watched the video.
It's always cool to know people you look up to like the same music as you - and Jericho and Black are not bad company to be alongside!
