Possible spoilers for Rite Here Rite Now below, my showing is on Saturday so there may be some speculation on my part. You’ve been warned.

Rite Here Rite Now has started its haunt across cinema’s worldwide, and as midnight approached they released a new song to accompany the movie’s arrival.

In a brief clip from the film on the band’s Instagram account we see Papa IV speaking to the ghost of Papa Nihil about a third song Nihil recorded in or around 1969. There’s an ominous message that follows that I won’t share here but we’re then introduced to a new song “The Future is a Foreign Land.”

My first impression is that this fits right in with Seven Inches of Satanic Panic. Every Ghost studio album has always had a ballad type song on it and “The Future is a Foreign Land” seems to fit right into that fabricated history of the band. It’s psychedelic with a huge sound. Sleezy guitars open the track as haunting synthesizers lift the sound of the time period up, seemingly from the grave. The lyrics ground itself firmly in the time period with mentions of the Kennedys and the end of the 1960’s. There’s the signature sexual energy from Seven Inches that shines through the song as the lyrics sweep across themes of ending regimes and the look towards a future that is unprecedented. As the track “was recorded in 1969” there’s an ominous mention of our current year 2024.

What can this all mean? Is Ghost’s next studio album a “period piece” of sorts showcasing Papa Nihil’s time as the front man of Ghost in the 1960s?