They are making waves, three albums out, each one selling more than the predecessor. I always thought they were some horrific Thrash Metal band with grunty vocals (in fact they never grunt) before I heard them, but they are melodic to the point of (dark) pop. There is even a certain early BÖC and Doors influence, eerie but sweet.
The constrained image and the look will of course one day be their downfall, there are limits to how long you can credibly (or rather: incredulously) chant
Come Together
Together As one
Come Together
For Lucifer's Son
No doubt they will one day grow out of it and thereby split their fanbase in two.
The band plays some humebug with their identities and true look akin to early Kiss, the pope character/lead singer is just an image effigy (and has changed from album to album with not much influence on the largely layered vocals which are not really hard rock or heavy metal at all), the musical mastermind is one of the devil-masked "Nameless Ghouls", probably one of the RD playing lead guitarists. Of course, in this day and age you can google his true identity with some patience but the media is so far happy to go along with it and I haven't bothered. Thankfully, the band see themselves as "entertainers" and not as satanists. That is the thing with satanists of course, the ones that claim to be almost never are, and the ones that are don't tell.
I'm sure their image will be good enough for some CD burnings (hard to burn downloads) in the Bible Belt if they ever tour there and isn't that all that counts? If Disney endorsed them, I'm not sure whether that might not raise some unrest in more conservative shareholder quarters!
And I agree, no way Beelzebub can be pleased with a P Bass in this band, bolt-on is after all inherently a concept of that dreaded Nazarene!
When I listen to their music at home Edith inevitably (after humming to the melodies at first) goes: "The crap lyrics! I can't believe that you can listen to this immature nonsense!" And I go: "What's wrong with being immature, honey?"