One of Ghost's Nameless Ghouls was recently interviewed by Metal Wani, and offered some insight into the band's next album. He also hinted that the band have undergone a significant lineup change. You can check out the chat below:  

Nameless Ghoul on new album (transcribed via Blabbermouth):

“The ideas for the new record will be quote-unquote darker, because it’s thematically set in a different… in a darker setting. ‘Meliora’ was supposed to reflect some sort of utopia/dystopia in the modern society, whereas this new one is gonna be a little bit more apocalyptic, a little bit more back to the medieval times, which, obviously, is associated with darkness.”

“Obviously, in metal, in extreme metal, you have a myriad of records that are thematically in the Middle Ages, but the idea for this new album is to combine… So where [other] records [covering similar lyrical themes are] drowned and surrounded and drenched in death, it’s gonna be a record about survival. So that constantly working with those polar, sort of, elements is also a difference, I guess, between… If you find a black metal record that is about the Plague and the death, you will have only death — everything is just black and everything just ends black. Whereas one of my driving forces writing a record like that is to write a record about the survival of that and the prosperity.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a darker record. Is it gonna be all through and through heavier? I don’t know, obviously. But we do have melody and we do have songs that are not so heavy. From my point of view, from where I’m sitting, knowing a little bit of the material coming in, it’s gonna be both. It’s gonna have everything from heavy, crushing metal to big, ballady anthems.”

“Right now we’re in the writing phase. As most modern music acts, you tend to record as you write. And we have never been a band that goes into a room and stands in a ring and just jams things; it’s more of a… you go into a room and record songs, and when you record it, it sort of comes back and you listen to it and then you do it again. So we’re in that phase right now. I’m not done with the record. It’s not gonna be recorded until… We’re gonna start for real in August. As soon as we come home from the American tour, it’s gonna start.”

Nameless Ghoul on lineup changes:

“From a practical point of view, you’re interested in, on the one hand, preserving the sound, or the elements that make up the sound, and you still wanna progress. I think one of the secrets behind our preserving ability is the fact that we don’t necessarily have to have the same six people in the room to make that sound, which helps.”

“It’s always a blessing and a curse when you have some of these classic bands over the course of rock and roll history, where in order for them to sound like that exact band, you need those four individuals, and if one is missing, it does not sound like that, and fortunately, we don’t have that problem. Because performing Ghost and recording Ghost has never really been the same thing. So that we can preserve our sound; we don’t have to rely on… if some people come and go, which is good. Queens Of The Stone Age is the same thing. Everything goes through Josh’s [Homme] hands, and therefore it sounds like Queens Of The Stone Age, regardless of who he brings in and out of the band, which is, I guess, a similar situation.”