With Tobias Forge saying at the end of 2019 that Ghost would be taking the next year off to craft a new album, we would have figured that a show in early 2022 would be some presentation of that.

Of course, 2020 went awry for everyone, so in place of an “Impera” tour show, what we got Monday night at the Petersen Events Center was more like a Ghost greatest-hits show with a few surprises.

Not that we’re complaining.

The Swedish metal band topped triple bill that began with LA duo Twin Temple — singer Alexandra James and her guitarist partner Zachary James — offering its unique style of satanic retro-pop with elements of rockabilly, doo-wop and swing. “Let’s Have a Satanic Orgy,” which starts like The Clash’s “The Magnificent Seven” before sashaying into a salsa beat, has Alexandra shouting “What’s the matter? You don’t like the taste of blood?! Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

Just a little Valentine’s Day romance.

Volbeat followed with a blast of Danish metal led by Michael Poulsen, with his clean, piercing vocals, and the guitar heroics of Robert Caggiano, known to metal fans as an early 2000s member of Anthrax.

Over the course of a 16-song set, Volbeat summoned the spirit of an Elvis gone wild on “Pelvis on Fire,” evoked the Man in the Black, Johnny Cash, on "Sad Man's Tongue" and did its own rumble of hellfire metal pairing “The Devil’s Bleeding Crown” and “The Devil Rages On.”

When last we saw Ghost, at the Benedum in 2018 on the Prequelle Tour, Forge had taken the form of Cardinal Copia, a snazzy showman with an Italian accent and snappy style of lounge-singer humor.

With its last show before the break, in Mexico in early March 2020, Papa Nihil was ousted, elevating Copia to the position of Papa Emeritus IV. So, as he told the PG last week, he’s the same guy, with a different painted mask — more Joker-like — and few different looks, including the majestic papal robe, donned for a fiery “Year Zero.”

One of the beauties of Ghost is the precise sound of the band, which lands somewhere in the zone between Metallica and Blue Oyster Cult. With eight Nameless Ghouls — in dark cloaks and gas masks — going hard behind Forge, those heavy-but-clean lines were lost in a muffle inside the Petersen early in the set.

Those sound woes made “Kaisarion,” the opening anthem on “Impera,” with its Iron Maiden-style guitar lines, a bit of a cacophony, at least from my spot. As the set rolled on, through “Rats” and “From the Pinnacle to the Pit,” we started to get a little less of the overbearing bottom end and a little more Papa in the mix.

A few times Papa Forge referred to their own music, somewhat mockingly, as “rock ’n’ roll.” It acknowledges the flexibility of Ghost, never shy to flash influences, to go from the ’60s-scented psych-rock of “Mary on a Cross” to the Slayer stomp of “Cirice” to the dreamy pop-metal-prog of “Hunter’s Moon,” a song they provided last year for the soundtrack of “Halloween Kills.”

The Ghouls on guitar, who somehow play through those masks, got to some comedy schtick and playful sparring while Papa Forge made a last costume change into a blue rhinestone jacket for a phenomenal final run. It included “Mummy Dust,” with a shower of confetti and cash, a rousing cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” the bewitchingly romantic “Dance Macabre” and the final fist-pump of “Square Hammer.”

As great as it all was, Ghost fans of Pittsburgh surely have one plea for the Papa: please return with the whole “Impera” package.

I’ve heard the whole album (coming March 11) and it is FIRE.

First Published: February 15, 2022, 8:15 p.m.