Swedish metal act GHOST’s new album “Impera”, which arrived earlier this month, is now officially the fastest-selling album of the year in the US.
According to Louder Sound, physical copies of “Impera” had 2022’s strongest first week numbers for any album in any genre, with 62,5000 copies sold in the US since it dropped.
Additionally, the new GHOST album now has the largest first sales week for a hard rock album on vinyl since PEARL JAM’s “Vitalogy” record sold 33,500 copies in its opening week in December of 1994. (The album was made available on vinyl for two weeks before being released on CD)
GHOST frontman Tobias Forge recently told Metal Hammer about the album: “I think people need to understand that my albums are never conceptual in the way that King Diamond’s are,” he says. “It’s never a story that starts in the beginning and finishes at the end of the story. It’s not a rock opera. To compare it to other artists, it’s more like Iron Maiden’s concept albums – like a record that loosely dabbles with the concept of pharaohs or time.
“On Powerslave, there are other songs that aren’t technically about pharaohs. Or like on Somewhere In Time, the songs have a chronological element in them. Impera is similar, where the songs are shining a light on various things within an empire. I guess you could say they show the cracks inside of it.”
GHOST’s “Impera” is available now via Loma Vista.