Moonspell - Gothic by Moonlight

Gothic-metal is usually associated with Northern European countries, home to numerous bands that have helped not only create the genre but also institutionalize it and popularize its many variants (from the harshest, most funereal strains to the more melodic and symphonic ones).
It was back in 1991 that England's Paradise Lost definitively fused dark, savage death-metal with slow, oppressive doom-metal, dubbing the result "gothic-metal". Immediately afterward came a flourishing of bands that would come to define the genre, most of them from northern regions; for instance, England's Anathema, the early Gathering from the Netherlands, Tiamat from Sweden, Theatre Of Tragedy from Norway.
However, one of the most creative and colorful bands in this field comes from a Latin country, specifically Portugal: Moonspell, led by singer Fernando Ribeiro. Their main achievement has been finding a balance between romanticism, macabre humor, introspection and eroticism on the lyrical side; and solemn melody, darker atmospheres, sonic extremism, electronic digressions and a more ancestral, folkloric musical dimension on the musical side. But what really deserves recognition is their ability to blend it all together in a cohesive, genuine way, following their own Portuguese sensibility, giving gothic an original neo-Latin touch that, even in its weaker moments, stands out with more charisma than most of what the scene has produced. Over 25 years of career, Moonspell have evolved their style, following different paths, which we'll outline below.

Formed in 1992, Moonspell are also one of the most complete bands in "heavy dark" music, since over the course of their discography they've explored numerous atmospheres and influences to enrich their sound: evoking prehistoric settings and then post-industrial ones, passing through medieval imagery, ranging from faster, more abrasive sounds to more measured ones, from folk-inflected passages to electronic ones, from tender tributes to more provocative ones, moving between aggressive moments and, more recently, even tentative orchestral sketches.
Beyond their neo-Latin origins, there's another peculiarity that sets them apart from the vast majority of their gothic-metal contemporaries: the fact that their early work didn't draw directly from the riffs and rhythms of doom-metal, but rather from the sounds of the most extreme Norwegian black-metal. In particular, it's Bathory who influenced the band from their very first works.
Moonspell's image, too, took its cue from black-metal: in their early years they adopted "battle" nicknames and had fun shooting promotional photos among ancient castles, musing on pagan traditions, all things they would later laugh off as "kids' stuff".
The way the early Moonspell spelled out anti-Christian, occult and even satanic themes through lyrics and song titles instead drew on America's Morbid Angel - who also provided a recognizable death-metal influence - as well as heavy-metal forefathers Black Sabbath (who were the first to paint hard-rock black) and England's Venom (who carried those shades into the abrasive sound of Motorhead).

Under the name Morbid God, the Portuguese band recorded their first demos, Anno Satanæ and Serpent Angel, before changing their name. These are very naive, youthful death-black demos - especially in the lyrics and titles, which almost seem to ape those of Morbid Angel ("Goat On Fire", in particular, is good for a laugh) - but fairly inspired in their melodies and more aggressive riffs. They would later be re-recorded in 2007, with considerably improved arrangements, atmospheres and melodic drive. The lineup consisted of Fernando Ribeiro on vocals, Duarte Picoto on guitars, Mike Gaspar on drums, Pedro Paixao on keyboards and Sergio Crestana on bass.

By the time the Ep Under The Moonspell came out in 1994, the band had already undergone a major shift, bringing in influences from Switzerland's Celtic Frost, from gothic-metal, and giving death-metal greater weight in their sound. The result is something furious and intense, steeped in an irreverent spirit toward religion, playfully winking at satanic aesthetics and occultism for the fun of it, with titles in broken Latin and sarcastic references to Allah or to eroticism. Ribeiro's vocal roar is that of a furious demon, occasionally accompanied by a female soprano to create a "beauty and the beast" contrast, a stylistic device borrowed directly from Celtic Frost, as well as from the early Paradise Lost and Gathering. Fast, abrasive riffs alternate with tribal, folkloric sounds that build an unsettling atmosphere, and the keyboard parts don't soften things but rather heighten the record's "sulfurous" edge. In our view the standout track is "Opus Diabolicum", an intriguing compendium of thrashy riffs, cutting solos, string flourishes and atmospheric keyboards. All in all, a talented Ep that takes the best from death-metal (the harder, more intense rhythms) and from black-metal (the buzzier riffs), even if the banal lyrics might make it easy to take less seriously.

The definitive transformation into a gothic-metal band - one that had fully absorbed the lesson of Paradise Lost while also giving it a highly personal stamp (thanks to its black-metal roots) and a somewhat more Sabbath-like touch in the riffing - came the following year with the release of Wolfheart. The album was produced by Poland's Waldemar Sorychta, who in those years was helping shape the sound of several important gothic-metal bands. In particular, in 1994 he also produced Tiamat's excellent "Wildhoney", with which Wolfheart shares points of contact in its keyboard atmospheres, the presence of guest Birgit Zacher, and the distinctive hard, dry drum hits. The influence of "Wildhoney" on Wolfheart is strong, but inverted: Moonspell reinterpret it through faster, more ferocious compositions. The album was released by Century Media, one of the most important labels in metal.
It's a sensational, multifaceted debut that immediately established Moonspell among the most talented metal bands of the '90s, showing off their startling compositional maturity. From the opening "Wolfshade (A Werewolf Masquerade)" onward, the band meticulously combines elegant arrangements, dark atmospheres and blazing guitars with melodic, romantic digressions that give way to more horror-tinged, twilight phrasing. "Of Dream And Drama (Midnight Ride)" also highlights the band's freer, more spontaneous side, with a deliberately out-of-place boogie-woogie piano and a thrilling bluesy/garage solo.
The poetry of this album isn't so much found at the lyrical-thematic level, where Moonspell are still a bit theatrical and driven more by youthful fervor than by any real internalization of their subject matter, but rather in the way different traits are blended together. The Portuguese band shows it can combine the aggression of extreme metal and the moods of dark music with a typically Portuguese rural, melancholic soul, lending the whole thing an evocative, solemn aura, almost like an epic poem meeting Romantic and Gothic literature.
The "poetry" told across the record is unusual, made up of Celtic villages, dark woods, supernatural folklore, crimes mixed with lovesickness ("Love Crimes", which flows into an enveloping keyboard coda quoting Tiamat's "Planets") and a pinch of theatricality, all experienced by a beastly yet nameless protagonist, enchanted by the moonlight. The glue holding it together is a primitive, ancestral attitude, best represented by two songs: the instrumental "Lua D'Inverno", a duet between a bucolic pan flute and a restless acoustic guitar, and above all "Trebaruna", a Portuguese-language ballad driven by bagpipe and galloping kick-drum, which the band dedicates to an ancient deity of the Lusitanian people (“Vampiria, you are my destiny/ My only love and true destiny/ Vampiria…/ You’re a beast, evil one”).
As a whole, Wolfheart isn't just a gothic-metal work, but practically occupies the niche of a folk-metal album too, close in attitude to Bathory (idolized by Ribeiro for their ability to blend black-metal, epic atmospheres and folk spirit). Still, among the album's influences there's also no shortage of 19th-century horror and occult literature. The werewolf theme runs across the whole album, tying in both to werewolf novels and to ancient myths of warriors who transformed into beasts in battle. Ribeiro alternates vocal lines between a death-metal-derived roar, the so-called growl, and a clean, smooth, deep baritone voice. His clean singing is unusual, with an accent that might sound a bit odd or challenging to listeners used to Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian voices, but it proves extremely distinctive. His growl is powerful and incisive. In short, Ribeiro vocally embodies the legendary werewolf that transforms on nights of the full moon. In old Eastern European legends, the figure of the werewolf often blurred with that of the vampire, and it's through 19th-century literature - avidly read, especially by Ribeiro - that the two creatures were definitively separated and acquired many of the traits that now distinguish them. So it's no surprise there's also a Transylvanian episode in "Vampiria", built from pitch-black keyboards, imposing, unsettling gothic percussion and lyrics evoking the seduction of an undead creature (“Vampiria, you are my destiny/ My only love and true destiny/ Vampiria…/ You’re a beast, evil one”).
"An Erotic Alchemy" inevitably follows, which - amid enveloping keyboards and intermittent bass - heightens the contrast of the band's beloved theme of macabre sensuality, as seductive as it is violent. The sounds and melodies in these two tracks might seem like a pile of stylistic clichés evoking the tormented vampiric love so dear to neo-gothic audiences, were it not for the fact that songs like these by Moonspell were what actually built the musical shape of that stereotype, which countless bands later drew on en masse, without ever matching Ribeiro's passionate, heroic intensity. Toward the end comes "Alma mater", the album's final gem, culminating in a catharsis that blends folklore, gothic and modernity.
Wolfheart is one of the cornerstones of gothic-metal as a whole and an essential reference point for any band wanting to try its hand at the genre. At home it's an institution - in 2010 the Portuguese postal service even issued an official stamp based on it, part of a series dedicated to the country's rock masterpieces.

A year later came Irreligious, opened by samples of medieval hermit monks chanting, as dark-ambient acts like Raison d'Etre had already done, before developing a thematic framework tied back to the contemporary age, setting aside the old Lusitanian villages. The title and lyrics symbolize a clear anti-religious stance, reinterpreted from both a more intellectual and a more instinctive angle.
It's a stylistically cohesive album, composed with great attention to detail, but less multifaceted and above all less surprising than its predecessor, as if standardizing Moonspell's music. Still, there are plenty of classy touches, especially on the vocal side and in the more mature lyrics, and overall the band's theatrical flair also seems more self-aware.
On the guitar front, Duarte Picoto departed and Ricardo Amorim arrived, who would remain in the band for good, giving the riffs a more immediate, direct edge. In any case, the album proved a major success with both audiences and critics, selling particularly well in Germany.
Among the standout tracks are Moonspell's first single, "Opium" (a reference to the concept of opium of the people), as well as the following "Awake", imposing, emphatic, epic, with a thoroughly successful chorus in which Ribeiro combines a ferocious roar with clean, romantic, passionate singing. Worth noting too is a sample of lines recited by Aleister Crowley, the famous poet and occultist best known for the satanic image that followed him.
The pairing of "Opium" and "Awake" forms a thematic whole, to the point that in the mix the first track flows directly into the second. Among the album's most celebrated songs, often revived live, are also "A Poisoned Gift", driven by piercing bass and anguished keyboards, the melodic hit "Raven Claws", with its bittersweet duet winking at soul through its female counterpart, and "Herr Spiegelmann", with its warbling guitar and organ melodies. Worth noting is "Subversion", a brief synth-goth interlude, not particularly striking, but one that anticipates experiments later picked up by other gothic-metal bands, including Paradise Lost themselves, who started the genre.
The album's masterpiece, though, is "Full Moon Madness", moving and compelling, elegantly bringing down the curtain on the record's dramatic narrative.

Just a year later, talented bassist Sergio Crestana joined and Sin/Pecado was released. The title is a play on words: "sin" doesn't just mean "sin" in English, but also "without" in Portuguese. "Without sin" is thus the concept's guiding idea, to be understood not as an expression of purity, but as a rejection of the notion of considering oneself a sinner, and therefore of religious authority. This time the convents and monasteries of Latin America are depicted as a metaphor for present-day society (and Portugal in particular, which colonized Brazil). Lyrically, Ribeiro maintains the poetic depth established with Irreligious, and his fondness for a certain kind of pained sensuality, refining it through inspiration drawn from philosophical texts and contemporary fiction, which feed more up-to-date reflections. The talented vocalist also introduces a slight ironic streak that takes pleasure in tearing down stereotypes.
Stylistically, meanwhile, Moonspell experiment with greater use of electronics around the songs, while the arrangements sound cleaner and more modern, with various surrounding effects enriching them. Guitars and drums become less catchy, more forceful and monolithic, echoing Black Sabbath phrasing more often. Ribeiro's voice all but abandons growling altogether in favor of a clean, melancholic singing style inspired by Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode, as well as Nick Cave and Vincent Cavanagh of Anathema (who were simultaneously evolving into a very atmospheric gothic-metal sound, before leaving it behind). More than anything, it's clear that Moonspell have brought into their music a component influenced by '80s darkwave, and are starting to rework it through their own personal approach.
The album's masterpiece is probably "2econd Skin", a melting pot of magmatic guitars and cutting solos, a Depeche Mode-esque anthem rendered in metal form. The following "Abysmo", with its thick guitar walls and Gahan-esque vocals, is also a remarkable track, and toward the end we'd also flag "Dekadance" among the best cuts.
"Fleshold" is an ethno-ambient interlude that carries Dead Can Dance into the new millennium; it then precedes the fine dark ballad "Magdalene", with an elegant balance between electronic and electro-acoustic textures. "EuroticA" continues the thread of "An Erotic Alchemy" and "Poisoned Gift", this time carrying it into electro-industrial territory, though it's less successful. Toward the album's close, the band circles back closer to its debut sound: "Let The Children Cum To Me", with its chants and bass-drum flourishes, plays on the contrast between liturgical sounds and the ironically blasphemous title to break the evocative mood; "The Hanged Man" is a mournful, aching acoustic ballad with female-voice counterpoints.

Sin/Pecado was well received by audiences, who nevertheless generally still preferred Irreligious, closer to the taste of metal's dark-leaning fringe. Music critics, on the other hand, were almost unanimous in praising Moonspell's desire for change, especially compared to many other gothic-metal bands who were, by then, starting to recycle stale, banal formulas.
Around the same time, the members of Moonspell released the only album of their side-project Dæmonarch, a collection of black-metal tracks written by Ribeiro when he was 16. It's not unusual for metal musicians, just as they feel ready to turn the page, to launch parallel projects more tied to their past (around these same years, for instance, Katatonia did the same thing with October Tide).

With the following album, The Butterfly Effect (a title referencing chaos theory), in 1999, Moonspell fused doom-metal, industrial-metal and synth-rock into a dense, dark monolith, made even more oppressive by the particularly down-tuned riffs, noisy distortions, and the return of the merciless growl alternating with a smooth clean vocal still reminiscent of Dave Gahan and, in part, Marilyn Manson (this latter influence also shows in the rhythm section and the surrounding electronic effects, alongside the relatively related solo path of Glenn Danzig and, partly, My Dying Bride's "34.788%... Complete").
There's no shortage of softer passages, as in "Can't Bee", with its mournful arpeggios broken up by a distorted explosion at its center, or in the dark ballad "Disappear Here", halfway between Jeff Buckley and Nick Cave, or even in the synth-pop/death-metal hybrid "Adaptables". It's a continuation of the path taken on the previous album, venturing into darker, more cavernous territory. The arrangements, meanwhile, are almost entirely the work of keyboardist Pedro Paixão.
In some ways the record stands in opposition to the wild spirit of the band's early days, even in its fiercest tracks ("Angelizer"?) or those that bring in tribal percussion ("Lustmord", perhaps the most successful of all). The epic feel of the early albums and their blend of romantic-macabre poetry and eroticism is, this time, countered by a far more sardonic, irreverent spirit (for instance, "Soulitary Vice", with riffs halfway between Black Sabbath and Marilyn Manson, driving rhythms and a title that says it all). The closer is "K", an atmospheric instrumental, halfway between electronic, acoustic and tribal percussion, which then flows into a noisy outro.
The Butterfly Effect is a far less immediate album than its predecessors, with sounds that feel "anomalous" by gothic standards, to the point that it can't really be called a fully successful record. Amorim's guitars don't sound like classic Moonspell here, and many tracks feel more like filler used to experiment with new riffs and effects for their own sake. The scene received it negatively, partly because longtime fans tend to be more traditionalist and resistant to certain sounds, while at the same time the taste of the more mainstream dark-metal audience in Europe was shifting mostly toward highly melodic or symphonic gothic-metal bands, not all of them of great artistic depth.

Darkness And Hope came out in 2001 and stylistically reshuffles the measured atmospherics and vocal lines of Sin/Pecado with the thick, distorted sounds of The Butterfly Effect, but reworks it all in a relatively more easy-listening key. From the opening title track onward, this time Moonspell also seem influenced by bands like Sisters Of Mercy, Tiamat's "Skeleton Skeletron" and Type O Negative, adding a radio-friendly dusting somewhat close to H.I.M. in certain respects. The result is a catchy gothic-metal sound influenced as much by melodic doom-metal as by goth-rock; and while not revolutionary, the result still feels personal. The atmospheres are twilight-toned, urban and melancholic, always accompanied by modern sounds that move away from the band's debut to continue the path of their last few records. There's much less electronics, though, relegated to the background of songs built mainly around Ribeiro's warm, deep voice, with the guitars mostly developing into accompanying walls of sound for most of the runtime. The guitar side is in fact a bit disappointing. The arrangements are fairly straightforward and revolve around choruses that are always very melodic, at times almost solemn. The lyrics return to a strongly poetic character and drop the excursions into black humor. Among the standout tracks are "Nocturna", especially for its captivating solo, the atmospheric hard-rock of "Ghost Song" and the hard-blues power-ballad "How We Became Fire".
Overall, one could say Darkness And Hope is complementary to The Butterfly Effect, for better and for worse: where the latter fell short on compositional taste despite its intriguing rejection of formal conventions, struggling to fully realize its relative experimentalism, Darkness And Hope instead sounds more conventional and predictable, but offers better-balanced tracks with more carefully crafted vocal melodies. It's an album more suited to new fans, but the more traditional metal audience didn't take to it well, branding it too "commercial". The sound is warm and full-bodied, courtesy of producer Hiili Hiilesmaa, already known for his work with Finnish bands like Amorphis (compared to whom there's an attempt - in vain - to reproduce the psychedelic yet melodic sound of their masterpiece "Elegy") or H.I.M. (with whom there are actually a few more points in common).
The various editions of the album contain different bonus tracks, all notable covers: "Os Senhores Da Guerra" by Portuguese folk group Madredeus, "Mr Crowley" by solo artist Ozzy Osbourne (where Ribeiro's vocal superiority really shines through), and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division.

In 2003 came The Antidote. Its concept tells the story of a boy and a girl who are born, live and fade away in Portugal, and it's the same storyline as the novel of the same name (published alongside the album) by writer José Luís Peixoto. The title references both Renaissance alchemy and modern pharmacognosy, and in Ribeiro's words it isn't meant to indicate a cure for a poison but rather the dual nature of substances: a poison can, in certain circumstances, act as a medicine, just as an antidote or a drug can be toxic. The idea harks back to the contrast between darkness and hope of the previous album and also recalls the famous saying of the alchemist Paracelsus, that "everything is poison, nothing is without poison, only the dose makes a thing not a poison".
The Antidote thus tries to sound aggressive and melodic at the same time; it's heavier than its predecessor, but still navigates within its atmospheric coordinates. The guitar side is bolstered by keyboardist Paixao, who also picks up the six-string alongside Amorim. The album's sound is once again handled by producer Hiilesmaa and so is again warm, enveloping and full-bodied, but capable of unsettling, chilling digressions. Among the best tracks is certainly the trio made up of "Everything Invaded" (powerful riffs backing Ribeiro, who alternates growling with a smooth, clean vocal), "The Southern Deathstyle" (scorching, abrasive death-gothic) and the title track (powerful Manson-esque power-chords alternating with acoustic melodies).
The record was better received by the public than its predecessor, though not quite at the level of the band's early albums.

After a three-year break, Moonspell returned in 2006 with a new bassist, Aires Pereira, and an album, Memorial, that proves to be the fastest and most aggressive of their career. The title itself hints at a look back to the past, but it also marks their departure from longtime label Century Media. The band sets aside the thicker, more distorted, more measured riffs of their previous albums - from The Antidote they just carry over the tendency toward heaviness - but the riffs here draw more on the style established in the first part of their career (not coincidentally, producer Waldemar Sorychta, who had shaped that earlier sound, also returns), and the compositions as a whole keep the gothic side and the more atmospheric, romantic elements to a minimum, favoring instead the fury of extreme metal.
It's an album much closer to melodic death-metal and, above all, to black-metal. It can't simply be called a return to the past, because its attitude is that of a violent, "straight-up-to-face" Lp unlike anything Moonspell had ever released before: gone are the evocative atmospheres, the more folk-inflected, varied arrangements, the harmonies and elegance of the early records, replaced by a pounding, furious work that pierces the listener and can hardly be filed under the gothic-metal label.
There are few exceptions, and aside from the rather trite melodic hit "Luna", they're almost entirely short acoustic instrumentals ("Mare Nostrum" stands out) meant to serve as a calm interlude before the storm, rather than to build bittersweet atmospheres that are integral to the whole. Even the more solemn keyboard parts heighten this aggression, making the atmospheres feel more tragic than epic. The lyrics are among the best Ribeiro has ever written; this time he sings almost exclusively in growl and fills his words with a sense of unease and dread (particularly on the goth-black-metal of "Memento Mori", the almost symphonic "Upon The Blood Of Men", and the slow, apocalyptic "Sanguine"). Drummer Miguel Gaspar has said this reflects a deep melancholy intrinsic to Portugal, the result of centuries in which first the Lusitanians and then the Portuguese found themselves standing at what was once the edge of the known world, facing the unknown (the furious, buzzing "Finisterra" is emblematic of this). Speaking of drums, the rhythm section's performance is also remarkable here - Gaspar especially is in staggering form.
The sense is that Moonspell wanted to distance themselves from the more melodic, atypical aspects of their recent albums - without disowning them - in order to vent an aggression that had been somewhat set aside, while still giving it a personal, distinctly Lusitanian touch. It's a very inspired, well-arranged album in terms of intent, one that grabs the listener with several gripping tracks and manages to offer a "Latin" alternative to the countless extreme-metal clones drawing inspiration from Odin or snow-capped mountains. On the other hand, the record also ends up feeling predictably "generic" and, at a certain point, repetitive, with tracks that start to sound too alike. Critics and fans, once again, gave it a mixed reception, some praising its intensity, others finding it monotonous.

In 2007 came Under Satanæ, a compilation of the band's earliest demos, re-recorded and polished in their arrangements. The result amplifies and heightens the most oppressive atmospheres and aggression of those tracks.

The following year came Night Eternal. The band doesn't show much that's new: the foundation is the same heavy, aggressive one from Memorial, this time rendered even more ferocious and tense thanks to a skilful dosage of melodic and shadowy parts. The atmospheres are more epic, and in certain moments they come close to symphonic black metal, with due proportions, through the use of big keyboard layers supporting droning, powerful riffs.
"Spring Of Rage" recalls a mix of Dissection and At The Gates, while the arpeggio of the title track recalls "Hell Is Where The Heart Is" by prog-death outfit Edge Of Sanity. It's an album far removed from the elegant, multifaceted ideas of the early days, but successful in what it sets out to do. Production duties go to Tue Madsen, who renders the sounds icy and distorted, giving the work a more "Scandinavian" touch, which indeed sheds some of the Latin colour of Memorial.
There's no shortage of more melodic moments, as in "Dreamless", which recalls certain episodes from Darkness And Hope and The Antidote, or in the measured, anguished "Scorpion Flower", where Ribeiro duets with guest Anneke Van Giersbergen. But overall Night Eternal does nothing more than carry forward its predecessor's discourse, partly stating it better on a compositional level, partly sounding less original. Moreover, in these years gothic metal has turned into a genre populated by often cookie-cutter bands that indulge in a series of stereotyped tropes - fast riffs, slow distorted chords, big melodic keyboards, angelic female vocals and banal melodies; records like Night Eternal stand in opposition to this trend, in this case drawing heavily on black metal to bring back the more extreme, furious side of gothic metal. The lyrics, however, prove less substantial this time around. Reception from both audience and critics was generally positive.

At this point the band enters a phase of hiatus, interrupted only by the live album Lusitanian Metal, and releases a new studio record only four years later, in 2012, on Napalm Records: the most ambitious and massive album of Moonspell's career, Alpha Noir/Omega White. It's an imposing double CD split into two parts, one emphasising the band's more metal, extreme side, the other leaning towards the Portuguese band's goth-rock leanings. The work is also dedicated to Peter Steele of Type O Negative, who sadly passed away in 2010.
Alpha Noir represents the harder side, heavily influenced by thrash and melodic black metal, to the point of being the band's most extreme album. The result, though, is more predictable and banal than expected: it feels like a tired rehash of the formula of the previous two records, with a few decorative flourishes. That's not to say Moonspell fail to show their usual skill in the arrangements, or that they don't land a few effective, enjoyable tracks. It's just that, overall, the compositions become flatter and more repetitive, the melodies themselves are sparser, leaving behind anonymous aggressive outbursts, an injection of virtuosic technicality lacking in substance, bland inserts (between sampled howls and big keyboard choirs, as with a thousand other bands) and the sense that there was less inspiration backing the band. The production is extremely clean and polished, but that's not necessarily a good thing, since it masks the reduced presence of ideas and artistic depth compared to the two previous albums. Those who loved this stylistic formula will still get a helping of the same main ingredients, dressed up with a few frills and some sonic "costume jewellery", but those who weren't fully convinced by Memorial and Night Eternal will likely come away disappointed.

By contrast, Omega White has more character, representing the band's more gothic-rock influences and openly inspired by Sisters Of Mercy and Type O Negative, paid blatant homage to in some tracks. The band's guise here is unprecedented, and doesn't hesitate to mix acoustic arpeggios, romantic ballads, distorted dark-rock riffs and hard-rock that at times also edges close to bands like Sentenced or the 69 Eyes. The songs aren't revolutionary, nor do they show a relatively experimental attitude as in the band's work from the late '90s - they're actually fairly formulaic, though they have greater expressiveness going for them. The solos, too, are more inspired. Paradoxically, the lyrics are a touch less deep, and Ribeiro loses some of his own charisma when he tries to imitate the vocal lines of Andrew Eldritch and Peter Steele. These are the record's weaker points, along with the sense of excessive derivativeness and arrangements that are a bit pompous and glossy. Still, it remains a decent interlude that varies the band's output somewhat and gives its best in the more intimate, melancholy moments (such as the gem "New Tears Eve").
Unfortunately, Omega White isn't available as a standalone release, only as part of the limited edition of Alpha Noir, but it would have been very interesting to see it pressed separately. The fanbase generally welcomed the warmed-over leftovers of Alpha Noir, but proved cooler towards Omega White, too far removed from the public's tastes.

With Extinct, in 2015, Moonspell decide to somehow combine the twin souls of Alpha Noir and Omega White, in particular looking beyond the latter's door, but reinterpreting its outlook in a personal key. The result is a gothic album that is once again not revolutionary, but certainly more colourful, seasoned with more aggressive outbursts and atmospheric big keyboards that are leftovers from previous records, but also with riffing that's at times more hard-rock, with full-bodied arrangements like those on the turn-of-the-century albums, as well as electronic touches and clean vocal lines that recover something of what Sin/Pecado had been. Despite the post-apocalyptic concept it sets out to stage, the record takes on epic tones, partly thanks to the usual background keyboards and partly thanks to solos that are far more incisive and compelling than those on the previous double album. More melodic moments alternate with more aggressive ones, combined coherently and tightly, with a particularly inspired Ribeiro alternating darker vocal lines, more solemn ones, and his growl. The extremely clean production this time brings out the drive of the songs, all potential melodic hits.
It's a genuine mix of intentions that renews the discourse carried forward by the Portuguese band. At times, though, it strays a little into recycling, both of their own material and others' ("Breathe", for example, picks up the vocal melodies of "Magdalene", while "Medusalem" and "The Last Of Us" owe far too much to Sisters Of Mercy, and in other moments it sounds like a mix of Nightingale and Sentenced). Despite this, the listen flows smoothly from start to finish. The best moments are probably the more measured ones, in particular the dark power ballad "Domina", the intermittent basslines of the Cure-esque "The Future Is Dark", or "Malignia", which recalls Dark Tranquillity and late-90s Paradise Lost.
The closer is a curious dark-cabaret digression, "La Baphomette", which doesn't have much to say about the genre itself, but which, in the context of Moonspell, sounds bizarre and interesting. The deluxe edition also includes some interesting bonus tracks,
such as the melodic dark-rock of "The Past Is Darker", which highlights the best of Moonspell's softer side.
As usual, the public splits into two camps over the record, while metal-focused critics generally praise it.

The Portuguese band's latest effort arrived in 2017, and Moonspell change skin once again, this time embracing full-on symphonic gothic metal. The Portuguese band returns to more sharply defined metal sounds, pairing them though with a symphonic framework enriched by string orchestration and operatic vocals to elevate one of its most inspired concepts: 1755 is in fact inspired by the earthquake that destroyed the city of Lisbon that year, which, in Moonspell's hands, becomes a starting point to narrate the multicultural, adventurous but also nostalgic spirit of Portugal. Ribeiro goes back to singing almost exclusively in growl, and the work's distinctive feature is that it's entirely in Portuguese from start to finish, with a few Latin inserts. This adds charm and colour to a highly distinctive record, driven by a deep, imposing existentialism befitting a true epic poem. Above all, it's the most personal, lived-in work Moonspell have made in several albums.
Overall, though, 1755 doesn't slip into the self-indulgence typical of the most epic metal, nor into the massive orchestral layering of bands like Therion, but always stays centred on Ribeiro's voice, Amorim's blazing riffing and the tireless rhythmic work of Pereira and Gaspar. On the other hand, it also doesn't slip into the more brutal (and at times forced) extremism of much of the Portuguese band's output in the new century, always measuring out the aggression, to the point that one could even argue that in certain moments the record seems on the verge of exploding into a thunderous climax only to fall short of real impact. The most positive aspect of 1755, then, is its balance, its cohesion. No tracks particularly stand out above the others; the whole LP comes across as fairly even, without major dips. The nods to fado (Portuguese folk music) and to Middle Eastern atmospheres (recalling bands like Israel's Orphaned Land) are concentrated mostly in the title track. These are certainly interesting choices, but the band doesn't dare to experiment with them further, relegating them to a small marginal ornament rather than genuine added value.

After 25 years of career it's certainly pleasing to find the band still in good shape and not lacking inspiration: Moonspell have fully earned their standing as one of Portugal's most important and influential rock acts.

In 2020 they parted ways with longtime drummer and co-founder Mike Gaspar (replaced by Hugo Ribeiro). A child of the pandemic, Hermitage (2021) turns the werewolves of "Wolfheart" into hermits. Moonspell avoid repeating the aggressive formula of the recent "1755" (2017), opting instead for a radical turn towards an intimate, atmospheric album, with unexpected influences for a metal band. Just listen to the opening notes of "The Greater Good" to immediately be reminded of Roger Waters' bass. But "Hermitage" also distances itself from the band's discography through Fernando Ribeiro's singing, which moves from the restraint of a singer-songwriter, as on "All Or Nothing" and "The Greater Good" (perhaps the beginning of Ribeiro's dream of making a Nick Cave-style record), all the way to an extreme hardcore scream more than a metal one (the title track).
Hermitage is a challenge for the more traditionalist fans and a reflection on contemporary society. Can we really go on living without awareness of how much mankind affects the environment, or must we abandon everything to truly reflect on our role? The pandemic merely made more urgent certain reflections that had already been overdue for years. It's a fairly experimental record from several points of view, from the attempt to merge Floydian sounds and metal on the album's most mature track, "The Greater Good", initially atmospheric with a calm voice before slowly turning into a rapid metal crescendo.
"All Or Nothing" is absolutely anomalous within Moonspell's discography, slow and intimate, seven minutes of reflection on a society that imposes (often through social media) a continuous, artificial dichotomy between opposing sides, forcing people to hold opinions and hate one another without any real awareness of their own choice. All or nothing, everything has to be black or white with no exceptions. Perhaps only the hermit can understand just how much greatness lies in between. "Hermitage" (pronounced the French way), on the other hand, is more traditionally metal, with a great opening riff and a Ribeiro vocal delivery unlike his usual one, screamed and violent, recalling a hardcore band. It could become the new "Alma Mater" of the live shows. "The Hermits Saints" is a strong candidate to become a new signature anthem for the band, as is "Apophthegmata", in perfect gothic-metal balance.
Another anomaly is the presence of two instrumental tracks, "Solitarian", once again caught between metal and Floydian atmospheres, and the closing "City Quitter", an unexpected modern-classical digression, a sign of the maturity of keyboardist Pedro Paixão, able to ideally recreate the image from the cover art of the hermit who, walking on water, leaves the submerged city behind him. But as Fernando Ribeiro has stated in various interviews, the true hermit isn't the one who leaves, but the one who comes back to recover a communal sense of society, to bear witness that an alternative exists, and to find the strength to save everyone.

The figure of the vampire, which has always influenced Moonspell's discography, returns centre stage after two albums (1755 and Hermitage) in which the Portuguese band had been occupied with entirely different matters. Eggers' "Nosferatu", which met with mixed reception from audiences and critics, certainly fired up Fernando Ribeiro's imagination, drawing a parallel between the figure of the vampire and Nietzsche's philosophy.
Far From God (2026) - far from God - is the vampire set in opposition to the divine, no longer merely a gothic symbol or horror icon, but becoming the representation of man who chooses to live far from God, fully taking on the weight of his own freedom, just as the Nietzschean superman takes shape after the death of God, building his own values autonomously. The single "Far From God" even uses the same lettering as Eggers' "Nosferatu", and the references become explicit.
Musically, the thirteenth album by these gothic-metal pioneers represents a bold evolution that scales back the metal component to the minimum in order to heighten the atmosphere and bring out the decadent romantic streak typical of nineteenth-century vampire literature. The opening track "Cross Your Heart", which opens with distinctly post-rock reverb-drenched guitars in a Mogwai style, sounds like a revolution, an attempt to renew the usual metal clichés in order to surpass themselves after thirty years of career. "Far From God" picks up the gothic-rock style, with bass up front and slow, atmospheric guitars in the best dark tradition. Add to these elements Ribeiro's warm, powerful voice, and it's clear we're faced with one of the best dark tracks of the year. The fury of "Irreligious" is gone, but the ability to combine music and literature, this time with clearly cinematic touches, remains intact, without showing any nostalgia for the Nineties.
Another track decidedly close to Mogwai's instrumental post-rock is "For The Love Of Mortals", slow and crepuscular, with anguished lyrics that spell out the burden of the vampire's immortality, who ends up envying the mortality of men. "Our Freedom To Fall" is the record's only truly metal moment, but slowed down to the borders of doom. "Reconquista" closes things out with expansive, aggressive guitars, and the reconquest here isn't the historical Spanish one, but that of freedom belonging to that minority of men capable of moving away from God in order to draw closer to the truth.
We're in gothic-metal territory, but a different one than usual. A record that wants to surpass itself and become post. Post-gothic metal.

Contributions by Valerio D'Onofrio ("Hermitage", "Far From God")

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google