According to Billboard, "Popestar", the new EP from Swedish occult rockers GHOST, sold 21,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The effort landed at position No. 1 on both Billboard's Top Rock Albums and Hard Rock Albums charts.

Meanwhile, the new GHOST original song "Square Hammer", which is featured on "Popestar", has entered multiple Billboard charts, including Hard Rock Digital Song Sales at No. 7 (3,000 downloads sold), No. 33 on the Mainstream Rock Songs airplay chart, No. 36 on Rock Digital Song Sales and No. 41 on Hot Rock Songs.

"Popestar" was released on September 16. The effort includes covers of songs from bands like ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN and EURYTHMICS along with "Square Hammer".

"Popestar" was helmed by English producer Tom Dalgety, who has previously worked with ROYAL BLOOD and KILLING JOKE, among others.

A Nameless Ghoul told myROCK about GHOST's new EP: "The EP will sort of connect with 'Meliora', so it's not [going to feature] a new Papa [Editor's note: In a parody of the Catholic Church's tradition of papal succession, GHOST singer Papa Emeritus is purportedly replaced by a new Papa for each GHOST album.], it's not a new album; it's gonna be like an extension of 'Meliora'. That is gonna prolong the tour. So we're gonna do an American tour in the fall, and then we're gonna come back to Europe in the beginning of next year and do a bigger, sort of final 'Meliora' show. And in between now and then, we will work on the new album, and after the European tour in the beginning of [2017], we're gonna go into the studio and record a new album."

GHOST kicked off the "Popestar" U.S. tour on September 16, with dates scheduled through November 12 in Brooklyn, New York.