Ghost release poignant Life Eternal video from the night Cardinal Copia was retired

(Image credit: Ghost/YouTube)

Last March, Ghost brought their A Pale Tour Named Death tour to a close with a final show at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City, Mexico.

At the end of the show – in a stunt that's become something of a tradition with the band – Tobias Forge closed the Prequelle album cycle by retiring the onstage persona he'd been using since 2018, Cardinal Copia, and introducing the next: Papa Emeritus IV.

Now footage shot on the night has been used to make a video for Life Eternal, the closing track on Prequelle.

Ghost’s next studio album is expected to be released this year, with Forge previously saying the album could contain “slightly more riffage.”

In an interview with Fansided, the vocalist said: “I always say that each new album is like a reaction to each of the previous.

“Since Prequelle is not hard rock or heavy metal, the natural reaction to that will be to write something that isn’t – I don’t want to use the word ‘soft’ – it'll be different from Prequelle in the same way Prequelle was different from Meliora.

“I’ll write a record that we don’t have yet because otherwise what’s the point? But I definitely have an album in mind with slightly more riffage.”

Forge also revealed to Swedish website VK that while Prequelle touched upon plague deaths and mass hysteria, he wouldn’t be seeking to channel the current global pandemic into his next set of lyrics.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.