Before there was Papa Emeritus, there was Repugnant, and this week the long buried Swedish death metal act clawed its way back into the light. Tobias Forge, the mastermind behind Ghost, has resurrected a reworked version of Repugnant’s 2004 song “Premature Burial” for a new music video he also directed, tucked inside Shudder’s horror anthology V/H/S/Mixtape, now streaming.
The rebuilt lineup reads like a death metal fantasy: Erik Danielsson of Watain takes over the vocal booth Forge occupied on the original, while former Repugnant members Gustaf Lindström (bass, who also did a stint in an early incarnation of Ghost), Thomas Daun (drums), and Gottfrid Åhman (guitar) round out the band. Forge formed Repugnant in 1998, broke it up in 2004 not long after “Premature Burial” first surfaced, and let a posthumous album, Epitome of Darkness, close the book on the project in 2006. A brief early 2010s reunion came and went too, before Ghost took over his energies.
Whether this is a one night resurrection for a horror anthology or the opening shot of something bigger, nobody involved is saying. Ghost has been on hiatus since wrapping its Skeletá cycle, and rumours of a Forge led death metal project have circulated for months.
We’ve got the connected-to-Ghost death metal band… apparently, he’s doing a death metal album, as well.
Earache Records’ Digby Pearson, on the Temple of Bleh podcast — unconfirmed by Forge himself
Pearson’s label has not been named as Repugnant’s new home, and Forge has not confirmed a new album is coming. What’s certain is that “Premature Burial” is the most Repugnant has sounded in twenty years, and the goriest thing Forge has lent his name to outside of a Ghost arena show. V/H/S/Mixtape is streaming now on Shudder.
