Opus Eponymous

Untitled

Opus Eponymous is the debut album by Swedish heavy metal band Ghost, released on October 18, 2010. It was released in North America on January 18, 2011, and in Japan on April 6, 2011. The Japanese release contains an additional bonus track; a cover of The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun".

Overview

A Nameless Ghoul explained that the songs on Opus Eponymous were written in 2007 and 2008, around two years before the album. It was the songs that caused Ghost to become a theatrical band with their Satanic theme, "Very early on, when the material came together in the project phase before it was actually a band, when it was a logo and a couple of songs, it came together by itself because the material and the lyrics sort of screamed a over-the-top commitment to the dark side. It is hard to make that credible and really eerie. What we thought of when we heard the songs is basically a band that looks the way we do now.", explained a Ghoul. A member said that it was the song "Stand By Him" that heralded the start of the band; "while being together in another band, Ghost started when I played a riff to everybody else. I said that this is probably the most heavy metal riff that has ever existed. Then I showed them the opening riff to “Stand By Him.” When the chorus came to me, it haunted my dreams. Every time I picked up the guitar, I ended up playing that progression, and when I fit the words in, it seemed to cry out for a Satanically-oriented lyric. This was in 2006. When we came up with the name Ghost, it seemed only natural to build on the foundation of this heavy imagery. Within that concept we were able to combine our love of horror films, and of course, the traditions of Scandinavian metal." The songs "Con Clavi Con Dio" and "Genesis" are speed up waltzes.

Describing why they covered "Here Comes the Sun", a Ghoul said "I’ve been a fan of Beatles even longer than I’ve been listening to hard rock, so it made a lot of sense." He explained that the band selects songs to cover based on if they can adapt it into their own; "We sort of found the angle of taking that so and inverting it. And that’s something that’s sort of the Ghost recipe for doing covers, it has to be a song that has some sort of tongue-in-cheek inversion quality to it. And that song just screamed “cover.”"

The theme of Opus Eponymous ties in with the band's second album, Infestissumam; "Everything on the first record was about a coming darkness, an impending doom. Whereas the new record is about something present, and literally, the new record deals with the presence of the Anti-Christ, the Devil." The first album ended with "Genesis", the birth of the Antichrist, and Infestissumam continues from the Antichrist's birth onwards.

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Decibel	9/10
Loud Magazine Australia	98%
The Washington Times	8.5/10

Opus Eponymous entered the Sverigetopplistan Albums Top 60 chart at number 59, staying on the charts for 5 weeks and peaking at number 50. The album was nominated for the Grammis Award (the Swedish equivalent to the Grammy Awards) in the "Best Hard Rock" category. In the June 2011 edition of Sweden Rock Magazine it was named the third best album in the past decade, with the first two being The Final Frontier and A Matter of Life and Death by Iron Maiden. The album's cover was declared the fourth best of 2010 by Revolver magazine.

Track listing

All songwriting credited to "A Ghoul Writer" except "Here Comes the Sun", written and composed by George Harrison.

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Deus Culpa"	1:34
2.	"Con Clavi Con Dio"	3:33
3.	"Ritual"	4:28
4.	"Elizabeth"	4:01
5.	"Stand by Him"	3:56
6.	"Satan Prayer"	4:38
7.	"Death Knell"	4:36
8.	"Prime Mover"	3:53
9.	"Genesis"	4:03
Total length:		34:41

Japanese Edition

No.	Title	Length
10.	"Here Comes the Sun" (The Beatles cover)	3:24
Total length:		38:05