Ghost have released the first in a series of videos that set the storyline for “new” frontman Papa Emeritus Zero. Entitled “Chapter 1: New Blood,” the clip, which you can watch below, comes ahead of a new run of tour dates, with a new album announcement expected before the road trip begins.

In the video, Papa Emeritus Zero – who replaced the previous Papa on the last show of Ghost’s last tour – is seen walking in a corridor with two young girls, one of whom is pulling an oxygen tank. They encounter Sister Imperator, who sends the children away before preventing Emeritus from playing a saxophone to prove he’s not as ill as rumors suggest. She refers to the band’s Grammy win as “not enough” and, changing into a younger version of herself, argues that what’s needed is “a new leader with youth, stamina and sexual charisma… someone more like you, but in your prime.”

Emeritus also becomes a younger version of himself until the illusion is shattered, and both characters, shaken, hear a knock on a door, and the silhouette of an unidentified person appears behind it, representing the “new blood” to which Imperator previously referred.

Ghost frontman Tobias Forge – who confirmed his real identity last year after legal action made it impossible to keep it hidden – later argued that the loss of secrecy wouldn’t hamper the band’s progress, saying: “The plan is for it to be even more theatrical and even more dressed up.” He added that the band’s fourth album, which was nearing completion at the time, was “loosely themed around the concept of death and doom" but that it was “definitely clinging onto a lot of very current things. … There's a lot that you would recognize today in online mannerisms.”

The band’s U.S. tour begins on May 5 and runs until May 27. Their last studio album was 2015’s Meliora.

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