Ghost Release “Life Eternal” Video Filmed at Papa Nihil’s Last Show

I think Ghost are great.

I also could not care less about the narrative aspect of the band wherein they keep changing singers but not really (at the end of the day, it’s always mastermind Tobias Forge beneath the make-up). Show me a photo of any given Ghost singer, and I will not be able to tell you which one is which; at this point, I’m not even sure I can keep track of all their names and ranks within the Church.

Both of those things can be true at once.

This is a long way of explaining that:

1. I really like the band’s new music video, for their song “Life Eternal;” it goes the ’80s power ballad video route of utilizing lots of black and white, slo-mo, behind-the-scenes and fan footage as an easy means of inducing sentimentality in the viewer (the music does a lot of the heavy lifting, natch).

2. The video was filmed the night Cardinal Copia became Papa Emeritus IV while Papa Nihil became a cherished memory, and I think that’s the least interesting aspect of it.

The most interesting aspect of the video? The way it rides the line between sincerity and irony. I honestly can’t tell if it’s meant to be a satire of the aforementioned ’80s videos or not. How aware were all parties involved that there’s subtext to slowly zooming in on a Nameless Ghoul — the expendable part of the group — while Forge sings about “longing for your forever”? I can’t imagine they really thought the swapping out of one fictional character for a slightly different fictional character would play so emotionally, but… I mean… did they???

Watch the video below and decide for yourself.

Ghost recently promised that the band “are working diligently on several big things for next year” and that news pertaining to those efforts will be unveiled in the coming months. You can read all about that here.