Umbra is a modern Ghost Masterpiece - and the Music Video Proves It.
Umbra, the penultimate track from Ghost’s most recent psalm is a combination of Ghost’s newer sound and their older themes. What’s more Ghost than a song about making love in a holy space?
Umbra, the penultimate track from Ghost’s most recent psalm is a combination of Ghost’s newer sound and their older themes. What’s more Ghost than a song about making love in a holy space? By giving it blasting synths and cowbell of course.
The Coital Track
Umbra entices us in with an emotional, building synth piece to set the scene. We also heard this synth piece way back when Papa V Perpetua was first teased to us. The music swells as subtle choral voices elevate us even further before the guitars,drums and of course, cowbell, bring us home.
Enter Papa V Perpetua, laying the scene out for us further, describing the dark chapel which he entices us to. A lot of the imagery in the lyricism evokes a similar scene to Cirice, an ominous chapel lit only by candlelight. And then the enthusiasm in his voice peaks as he sings “In the chapel of the Holy One, in the presence of the Chosen Son, I see your light shine through. In the temple of the godly scene, in the shadow of the Nazarene, I put my love in you.” Again, more Cirice-esque imagery, “I can see the stars inside you” but without the manipulative, twisted edge.
Umbra is about sexual liberation, ‘desecrating’ a Holy place by allowing yourself the love the church is so afraid of. In the second verse Papa comforts us and gets more romantic “In the shadows, stripped of sin…. In the shadows, I will make you my angel” What these lyrics are telling us is that we can disregard the dogma of sinning and denial of one’s own impulses, because your lover will make you their angel, rather than the church.
Then the excellent instrumental break hits, where they continue to tell the story. There is a call and response between the guitar and the organ, meant to represent flirtation or foreplay. They play back and forth, each call and response growing more elaborate. Here the background builds and builds, just as the organ and guitar try desperately to put on the most elaborate performance, like a mating ritual between animals. As the drums crash however, the two come together in a beautiful symphony, representing the two engaging in coitus. The whirling noise and final high pitched release of the organ is the orgasm. (Organ gasm?)
Of course after this Papa returns to croon the chorus one last time, the most celebratory of all the chorus. And then as the chorus concludes the music “runs out of steam”, as if sinking back after, ahem, completion.
Umbra Music Video
The music video builds on these themes, illustrating the storytelling of the lovers in the chapel. In the call and response section, the male is associated with the organ while the female is with the guitar. They execute well choreographed dances as the instruments shout back and forth at one another, before crossing and meeting with each other in a dance with one another as the instruments join together in force. The meaning is unmissable, as after the instrumental concludes, the two are on the floor and clearly moving onto another step, as shown in lusty quick flashes. These coital images are of course illuminated only by candle, a warm glow that shows flesh meeting flesh in the most intimate way.
All the while Papa is in the shadows singing the lyrics, with a few direction choices making it seem like he is watching and even meeting their gaze a few times. But his presence is incidental and never fully addressed, as if he were a ghost.
Beyond the Surface Level, Embracing Death
The track’s title ‘Umbra’ relates to this, meaning shade or ghost. And this brings us onto a second interpretation of the lyricism in the track, not about love, but about death. It is no wonder this meaning is here, as the quick lyrics of “so thrilling it’s killing you” and “so killing, it’s thrilling me” as well as the heavy emphasis on shadows.
The sexual liberation described in the previous lyrical analysis could just as easily be about the liberation felt at the end of one’s life. Less sexy, but when Papa sings “In the shadows, pale and cold, in the shadows, lay my soul, in the shadows, death becomes your lover” makes this other theory a little too obvious. This instead paints a picture of a dying protagonist in the chapel before the shade, the umbra.
Before the altar, lit with black candles, the protagonist meets death who “puts their love” in them by taking them to the afterlife. The line about making the protagonist their angel now is reinterpreted as a more literal sense, ascension to the afterlife not through carnal liberation, but by passing on from the mortal realm.
This interpretation draws the track thematically in line with the last song on the album Excelsis which would represent the ride over the rainbow bridge so to speak, after the protagonist already died in Umbra. The end of Umbra sounds like the song ‘running out of steam’, and rather than being exhausted from love making, this could be a dying breath. Need I remind you that after the track concludes, the next thing we hear on Skeleta is “it is the end” ?
The call and response that in one interpretation represents flirting and lovemaking could be arguing with death for one’s own life, before eventually being overtaken by them. Death puts their love into the protagonist, and with that they can transcend to the afterlife.
An article by Henry.
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