Illegal Foreign Object

I refuse to make this post about Tobias Forge and Ghost…

I refuse to make this post about Tobias Forge and Ghost…

I refuse to make this post about Tobias Forge and Ghost…

Don’t be concerned if the name Henrik Palm doesn’t immediately conjure up a dozen thoughts — his most successful mainstream endeavor occurred under a devil mask and going by the name, umm, Nameless Ghoul in the Swedish metal band Ghost. Playing guitar and bass on the highly listenable Meliora, Palm spent parts of 2015-2016 touring the world with Ghost. Then, he and the other nameless ghouls sued singer Tobias Forge (aka Papa Emeritus I, II, III, Papa Nihil, Cardinal Copia, and IV) over, well, the usual band shit. Look it up if you want to read about it — it’s out there, and it’s all quite cliché and boring.

Forge added some new ghouls and got back to making music. Palm did the same (sans ghouls, of course), releasing Many Days in 2017 and Poverty Metal in 2020. Poverty Metal is where I stepped onto the train.

For the uninitiated, and let’s be honest, you’re the audience I’m chasing with these posts, Poverty Metal sounds like what you might hear if Queens Of The Stone Age and Canadian pro-metalers Voivod got into a hellacious brawl then the Cure’s Robert Smith stumbled upon the fight and tried to break it up by hitting everyone over the head with an array of weirdo ’60s synthesizers. There, you got yourself a picture painted?

“Bully” opens Poverty Metal with a dirge-like march, then hurls itself into the kind of sinister, arty post-punk goth rock that made everyone think Nick Cave was a vampire in the early-’80s. 

♫“Take a look around

I see you for what you really are

Bully”♫

“Concrete Antichrist” careens and sways like a drunken pirate on the deck of a ship in the middle of a big ‘ol goddamn storm, while Palm croons “You are nothing” as the acoustic “Nihil” slides gracefully into the drum-driven “Nihilist”. “Sugar” lures you in, threatening to level you at any moment (but never does). “Given Demon” reminds me of the moments when Josh Homme’s vocals slide into David Bowie parody. That’s not a knock — “Given Demon” stomps around for a while before settling into a nice guitar and glockenspiel outro. It’s my favorite track on the album. Palm even makes Twisted Sister’s “Destroyer” all his own with a bass-heavy, plodding version that sounds more sinister than anything Dee and the boys ever managed.

If you hear bits and pieces of Ghost in Poverty Metal, that’s hardly shocking. Henrik Palm isn’t resting on what he did in that band, but the fact remains — he played a huge role on Meliora. Still, Poverty Metal is very much its own thing — a doomy, post-punk romp that never gets so far out there that Palm can’t rein it back in with a beautiful melody or haunting whisper.

Tracklist:

1. Bully 9/10
2. Sugar 9/10
3. Concrete Antichrist 8/10
4. Given Demon 9/10
5. Destroyer (Twisted Sister cover) 9/10
6. Nihil 8/10
7. Nihilist 8/10
8. Last Christmas 7/10

Grade: 84