Singles Review: PRIEST - The Pit / The Cross

The Cross (Left) & The Pit (Right)

THE PIT

01 The Pit

02 Reloader

THE CROSS

01 The Cross

02 Tria Prima

Priest is believed to feature one or more former members of Ghost. Like Ghost in the early days, there is plenty of mystery surrounding Priest. They released their debut single The Pit back in March, shortly after it became public knowledge that Papa Emeritus (AKA Tobias Forge) from Ghost sacked the whole band after their 2016 summer tour. Former guitarist Martin Persner went online unmasked, and revealed that he was playing in the resurrected Magna Carta Cartel. There was much online speculation that the members who hadn't reformed Magna Carta Cartel were now doing this new project Priest. But that's just it, it's all speculation. There are plenty of people commenting on the YouTube videos claiming to know everyone's identities, and other people claiming that they're definitely wrong. Naturally, this mystery is creating quite a bit of hype in the same way it did for Ghost, prior to plenty of names being made public due to the current lawsuit. Personally, I love theatrics in the music scene, so Priest immediately grabbed my attention.

I didn't review The Pit, as it was just a two track single and I was going to wait for an album release. However, Priest released a new single earlier this month called The Cross, and I love it so much that I thought I'd review the pair.

Musically, they remind me of my favourite Depeche Mode album Violator, mixed with Nine Inch Nails' near perfect debut album Pretty Hate Machine, Paradise Lost's grossly underrated Gothic Electronica album Host and a cheeky splash of 80's Synth-Pop.

Both lead singles are really strong, with The Cross being my favourite of the two. The accompanying music videos present Priest with a really strong image, with the singer (I believe called The Puppet Master) wearing a spiky gimp mask, and the rest of the band in similarly creepy attire, creating a world of bizarre fetishes, suffering, sex and death, all in an arty way, of course. They certainly don't seem like a band you would take home to meet your mother!

The really good news is that the label Lovely Records have put both singles and their accompanying B-Sides on YouTube, so you can listen to everything Priest have released so far for free!

Priest are in the early stages of what promises to be an interesting musical journey, so now's a good time to check them out. Watch them get a lot bigger over the coming months.