“The Swedish band Ghost reliably hits the three Ps hard: proggy, punky and poppy. Its fifth album, IMPERA, packs the ambitious sprawl of ’70s rock epics into (relatively) bite-size packages with amusingly confounding story lines. ‘Spillways,’ one of the album’s most straightforward tracks, starts with a pounding piano straight out of Billy Joel’s ‘All for Leyna’ and quickly segues into a sweetly constructed rock tune. Think Bad Religion with ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ running through its veins.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES