Occult rockers Ghost have debuted at #1 overall on the Billboard 200 with their new album Skeletá. The chart-topping achievement marks the band’s highest debut in the U.S. to date and is a significant milestone—not just for Ghost, but for hard rock and metal as a whole. Skeletá is the first hard rock or metal album to reach #1 on the Billboard 200 since AC/DC’s 2020 release Power Up. 
Ghost’s sixth studio album, Skeletá, is being hailed as the band’s most unflinchingly introspective work yet. While previous albums like Impera explored grandiose themes like the rise and fall of empires, and Prequelle tackled the devastation of historic plagues, Skeletá takes a deeply personal turn.
According to the band, the lyrics across the album’s ten tracks offer individual emotional landscapes, each one delivered with an intimacy that feels like a conversation with oneself in the mirror. The result is a cohesive body of work filled with timeless, universal sentiments, all seen through the lens of frontman Tobias Forge’s signature storytelling style and theatrical vision.
Ghost previously peaked at #2 with their 2022 release Impera, making Skeletá not only a creative evolution but a commercial breakthrough.
