They return. The nightmares always return. Sometimes you recognize their outlines, sometimes you don't. They have shifting profiles, and sometimes you just can't understand what the edges are that delineate them. You cling to few and tenuous permanent certainties. Sometimes not. As in the case of Moonspell.
This band has truly enjoyed, time after time and with each release, confusing their fans and listeners. I imagine Moonspell fans: they never know which saint to pray to, what style and words to use, according to which criteria to categorize, what approach to take with each of their statements. They are certainly insecure and frightened. For sure, always captivated by the music of these four Portuguese. Four plus the bassist of the moment, who, between one Amorphis record and another, even has the luxury of collaborating with other big names.
But Moonspell is like that. They return shortly after a collection of their greatest hits (I'm talking about "The Great Silver Eye", which couldn't have been more meager, since it didn't have a single new track on the lineup) and a refined and cruel reissue of their early songs ("Under Satanæ"). Even those they published when they still called themselves "Morbid God", not really thinking they themselves had to achieve such substantial success as they have since followed.
But here we are today instead. And we are here to give some impressions on this brand new "Night Eternal", the group's latest effort, and which, to tie back to the above, I'm sure will once again give a hard time to those who thought Moonspell's harmonic deviations were taking a more perilous, breakneck path compared to "Memorial", their last completely new album.
It's not so. At least, at first glance you are deceived. The songs aren't that erratic and laden with that bestial sensuality that gave the band so much fortune in the past. The sounds are mostly pumped and powerful. Driven by anger rather than true empirical sensuality; they make for a good listening figure at maximum volume in the player. But the common thread, which is the real key to navigating the anthropomorphic universe of Fernando Ribeiro's band, is very much present and audible: that gothic and decadent vein, those heavy and brutal guitars that at a certain point "detach" from their tight feral mounts to stand out in the sharp turn, softened by epic choirs, and the singer's beastly growls, are always there.
Only, they travel at a speed and according to a scheme designed and produced so that only after many listens can they be well understood.
After two or three times of doing and undoing, you are struck with dismay. How is it possible that Moonspell fell off so much? Then it was true that their vein had irreparably dried up!
After ten or more listens, though, your face lights up, and you begin to understand something about "Night Eternal". Of course, Fernando's voice alone doesn't allow for a flop and could even resurrect the dead. The aggression derived from their Black Metal roots is there purposefully to serve as a lure. But that's not the focus on which the album's coordinates move.
Blaspheming, it could be said that it's a clever mix between the dark "The Antidote" and the fierce "Memorial". But it's reductive to think of it that way. It's only good for blaspheming. Yet that's the sensation. Just listen to "Night Eternal" itself: a steamroller rhythm section that doesn't allow for any melodic prejudices, but, under it all, indulges in pairing sulfurous aggression with the epic, leaden and thick keyboards that peek through like a sliver of light. "At Tragic Heights" is further evidence of this. Besides, in my opinion, being the most successful track on the entire lineup. The one that, while retaining a terribly caustic but at the same time romantic soul, doesn't yield to the "Industrial" temptations that pop up here and there among the tracks.
Here's another novelty. The industrial ruminations, which, if we weren't talking about Moonspell, wouldn't be news in themselves. And yet we are talking about Moonspell, and whatever they play, you are led to distinguish from the other.
"Scorpion Flower" was the song that the band most broadcasted to the four winds, presenting it as the single/symbol of the entire album. And in this I must say that they have taken a big blunder. Agreed, it takes advantage of the collaboration of Anneke van Giersbergen, the sensual former singer of the Gathering, which is already a point of curiosity, but, I assure you, it doesn't go beyond that. The song, for which the video has already been released (and in some ways is truly embarrassing: seeing Ribeiro striking poses like a modern Bela Lugosi as a vampire is quite funny), is the most affected stereotype that Moonspell could have provided. With the usual ingredients: sensual voice, bone-crushing riff, two-part hiccupped choir, then again sensual voice, then again little choir, and the liver is already down the drain. Logical, we're still talking about a classy track, how could it be otherwise. But there's better on the album. No doubt about it.
After the first part, let's say "shot" into the ears to remind everyone who we are talking about, we arrive at the second part, more intricate and surely more difficult to appreciate on first listen. "Moon in Mercury", the track most linked to the Portuguese's past, this one without too many changes and gothic smudges, that gives way to blind and fierce fury; "Here is the Twilight" which moves instead on more epic tracks and where the mark of the keyboards is more strongly evident, and "Dreamless (Lucifer and Lilith)" which shifts the attention and recollection to a much underestimated album like "Darkness and Hope", reassessing its shadows and emanating sensations that seemed almost a song discarded from the lineup at the time. The real pleasure, however, comes at the end, when encountering, first "Spring of Rage" and then, especially "First Light". The former begins with a well-executed and scraping attack, then opens into a melodic and sensual melange, precisely as I have always stated, "bestial", then suddenly disconnects, even supported by full and morose guitars, in a rush of adrenalized wickedness. Gratuitous, a bit self-serving. Just as Moonspell have always accustomed us to. The latter instead moves on calmer, certainly gothic and dark paths, and will delight everyone. I'm sure of it. Do you recall "Full Moon Madness", the song that wrecks the fans at every concert? Well, this one stands as a natural continuation and shows us a band in extraordinary form, from whatever point of view you look at it: the parts are overturned and they are lavishly infused with extraordinary versatility and elegance, sensations and moods that perhaps no one remembered anymore. Wickedness, satanic whispers, chords lost in the dark, sensuality, sensuality, sensuality.
What are you looking for in Moonspell?
If you don't know, then you'll like this album, otherwise step back and listen to their older works. Surely you'll find some that you'll like more than this one. But I know well what I'm looking for in this band, and with this album I can say that I am abundantly satisfied.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 At Tragic Heights (06:51)
["And the first went, and a vial poured upon the earth; and there fell (...)
A grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast (...).
"And the second angel poured out the vial upon the sea;
And it became as the blood of a dead man;
And every living soul died in the sea.
(It is done...)
"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun;
And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
"And the seventh angel pured out his vial into the air;
And there came a great voice
Out the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying: It is done."
(Book Of Revelation #16, John)]
At tragic heights
A failure pure
Surrender to nothing
But the truth
Fall now - endlessly
Into the ashes
And dare to know
At tragic heights
She hangs from the stars
A requiem played
In a broken heart
At tragic days
The height of truth
Trust no one but your own blood
Shade now - eternally into the hearts
And dare to be cruel
At tragic heights
She hangs from the stars
A requiem played
In a broken heart
At stars unborn
All has begun
At the shadow sun
Delirium
At tragic heights
She hangs from the stars
A requiem played
In a broken heart
In a rotten heart
07 Dreamless (Lucifer and Lilith) (05:16)
They thought that love was sacred
Until they met the desecrator
A sea of poison came in between them
And there was red on the ground below
They can not breed
Bound to never rise
Their lies will be repeated
Forever
Now they're dreamless
Straight into the dark clouds
Never to come back
They thought there's more
Than meets the eye
In face of beauty all men are blind
And the gates opened to let her through
They can not breed
Lost in the crimson skies
The nights in our hearts
Will last forever
Now they're dreamless
Straight into the dark clouds
Never to come back
Now they're dreamless
Forever
09 First Light (05:43)
Somewhere inside a soul
A shadow is taking over
My questions are being answered
An act of courage
My story is being told
Somewhere inside these four walls
Another war has begun
The prodigal Son came home tonight
To slay his father
And drink his blood
Noite eterna
Primeira vida
Ainda por revelar
Noite eterna
Primeira sombra
Ainda por revelar
With the violence of a first light
Somewhere in a rose of death
A leader is being followed
His cities are catching fire
But he doesn't hear
His people screaming
Somewhere as the morning breaks
Steps are heard in the shattering glass
The bride to be returned to the feast
To make love end
''Noite eterna
Primeira vida
Ainda por revelar
Noite eterna
Primeira sombra
Ainda por revelar''
With the violence of a first light
Hordes of the Shadow Sun
Afire with the intuition
We are a race of sorrows beholding
The tear and the wear of the Earth
FIRST LIGHT, CURSED BE!
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