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Cirice

by Ghost

Whether or not you can keep a straight face through Ghost’s stage act, there’s nonetheless plenty to recommend this Swedish metal band’s Grammy-winning US breakthrough single on a musical level. It’s very cool the way they give the song’s hook line (first heard on “can you hear the thunder” at 1:31) a new lease of life halfway through the song by tacking an extra half-bar onto the first phrase ("…in your heart") and reharmonising the backing parts to include a couple of euphoric major chords. The second of these, the C major first heard at 2:22, has the added benefit that its E creates a whacking great false relation against the root of the following Eb major chord — and few people like false relations more than musicians with long-term face-paint-related acne.