Glut Your Soul

The idea of the devil representing ‘evil’ as opposed to 'good’ does not… it clashes with my idea of the devil. Because the devil for me represents rock and roll, film, freedom, humor - essentially, my life and my background because it’s so coloured with so many “blasphemous” expressions. I think that’s one of the most common misconceptions that makes it so hard for people to fathom - that there’s obviously the biblical devil, and then you have the pop-cultural devil. The pop-cultural devil being very much a representative of freedom, intellectualism and liberation from the chains of handicapping worship of the three Hebrew religions - because that’s what [these religions] are about, they’re about control. Satan represents, in the pop cultural sense, the opposite of that. In the Bible it represents evil, but I know very, very few things in the history of the world that have been perpetrated in the name of the devil that have been to the non-benefit of mankind, whereas… I mean, just look at the amount of abuse and human despair that has been caused in the name of 'good.’

Hello there! 👋 Another archived artwork for Papa III alternate face paint. It may looks silly tho putting Papa II face paint on Papa III faces but-

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bonus stills:

Happy Infestissumam day! The album turns 7 years old today.

As per e-mails exchanged between Tobias and the ghouls in December 2010, it seems that the band started working on the second album almost immediately after the release of Opus Eponymous.

Initially, Tobias had two ideas for the title – “Infestissumam” and “The Sound of Doom to Come,” the latter of which he seemed to be in favour of more. This is how he described his ideas in one of the e-mails:

I have two working titles for it: “Infestissumam” (mean something like “the forefront threat” in Latin) and “The sound of Doom to Come”, and I have attached an early draft.. My idea is that my sister Maria should paint it.. But the draft (that is the work of Gurra) gives you an idea of how next album will look. Dark and Majestic. I’m also thinking that there should be a glow around the little antichrist so Papas cape will be illuminated from the inside - if you get my meaning?

What you can see in the first picture is that very rough draft of what his general idea for the album cover was. The second picture is a painting by Maria Ackerfors based on that draft. It wasn’t used as the cover, but Maria worked with Ghost on multiple other occasions – she shot some of the first photographs of the band and designed stage backdrops for them.

Meanwhile, sometime in early 2011, Tobias met Zbigniew M. Bielak - a Polish architect/artist/very cool guy in general. He was particularly impressed by the work Zbigniew did for Watain’s Lawless Darkness a year earlier - a series of 12 very meticulous illustrations based on each song on the album - and commissioned him to create a similar series for Infestissumam. As you can see, the original idea for the front cover that Tobias had in mind is still there in the final product: we have both the baby antichrist and a Papa-esque figure looming over him (referencing the poster for Milos Forman’s Amadeus of course).

As for the fate of that second title… The rest of the band wasn’t as fond of it as Tobias, so in the end they went with the other option, to which his response was:

Ok, boring people. No “The sound of Doom to Come” :´(

I don’t have a life...

What is Papa up to?