Ghost : "Phantomime"

 

At first, I was not going to even bother with this one. Their version of "Jesus He Knows Me" was so terrible, I did not even think I would be able to get through an ep of this. Then I considered the problem which is Ghost is given impunity by most metal media, so if anyone is going to stand up and call it as they hear it, it would have to be me. With that said this EP of covers opens better than I expected with a cover of Television's "See No Evil" which works because much like Ghost, the band Television was not metal either. Instead, they played a quirky version of post-punk, that Ghost took the quirk out of but did a pretty accurate pop-rock depiction you might expect from it. So it does not suck. 

This positive beginning to the album is met with the terribly happy take on "Jesus He Knows Me". If you do not pick up an instrument and are automatically making music that is darker than Phil Collins era Genesis, then you certainly do not need to be dressing up for Halloween. If you do not know who the Stranglers are, then know they are like if you took the Doors and asked them to cover the Clash, they are what you get. With that said Ghost takes on the Strangler's "Hanging Around", This makes more sense than you might imagine as they obviously influenced how Ghost records their vocal harmonies. I like Poppa Smurf's vocals better than the original vocals. It works for what Ghost does. 

Paul Dianno has already made his thoughts known regarding his feelings about this cover. Coming from him I can understand his perspective, and do not disagree with his perspective. As the original singer of this song, he understands that the kind of ball-less bleating that follows in no way captures the spirit of what he was trying to convey, no matter how many layers of vocals they try to use. The guitarists are the only ones that are convincing, the bass is too low in the mix for Maiden. They do not have the vocal power to attempt Maiden so not sure why they even bothered. Even Tina Turner's husky alto proves to have more balls than Papa Smurf can manage. I will give this album a 5, and that is better than I anticipated.