>a bad attempt at imitating the old Mercyful Fate/King Diamond shtick.<
Add a dash of Morbid Angel, Bathory and Celtic Frost (yeah, I listened to black metal in my moody, angry teen days), but the difference was that I didn’t go out, sacrifice and drink blood or even pretend to say “I love satan!” like these losers who were swept up with it. I moved on to faster types of death metal such as Slayer and Cannibal Corpse.
And maybe the real reason why I moved to Metalica back then because a lot of hot goth chicks in school were into it and I used “And Justice For All” to get lucky (cough)
I was right there with ya. I listened to most of that stuff too. I liked some of the music well enough, but was never terribly interested in the whole occult/satanic side of the scene. Some of it was neat in a dark, rebellious sort of way I suppose, but it just never appealed to me and I mostly moved on to more mainstream hard rock/metal.
When I read this article I actually went and found this band, Ghost, on youtube and listened to their stuff. I can say they are really, truly terrible. I'm not saying that as some old guy who can't appreciate alternative styles of music either. I see what they are trying to copy, and they just do a terrible job of it. There is nothing original or interesting about any of the stuff I heard and we will likely never read or hear about them again.