GHOST mastermind Tobias Forge has confirmed to Revolver that he will return to the studio in January 2020 to begin work on the band's next album.

"I want to make a different record from [2018's] 'Prequelle'," he said. "I want it to feel different. If I dare to say heavier, people think that it's going to be MERCYFUL FATE all the way... but I definitely have a darker, heavier record in mind."

According to Forge, "Prequelle" was "a little ballad heavy" and its follow-up will lean more in the direction of 2015's "Meliora" without repeating the same ideas.

Back in February, Forge told Billboard that he had already been working on music and lyrics for GHOST's next album for "months." He said: "Luckily, this time around, I feel very certain as to what I want to do. The dramaturgic nature of the records and the stories are getting more and more intertwined nowadays, which I like. It's almost like working with a series, I guess; you have your characters and you can still fuck with them and add new things and take things away. You can do whatever you want, which is always enticing from a creative standpoint."

Forge founded GHOST more than a decade ago and has written almost all of the group's music, while also performing for years in costume as first Papa Emeritus and now Cardinal Copia. His real name was a mystery for much of that time and still does not appear on GHOST LPs.

"Prequelle" debuted last June at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart.

The band will embark on a North American tour this fall in support of the disc, starting on September 13 in Bakersfield, California and wrapping on October 26 in Glens Falls, New York.