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Rating: This album, sadly, marks the end of my relationship with Moonspell.
A relationship that started towards the end of 1995 thanks to a little cassette I got from a tape trading, a love at first sight that accompanied my transition from teenager to man for 20 years, with its ups and downs but always very intense, even when the betrayal (on their part) was painful and repeated but nevertheless always forgiven.
Certainly the Portuguese have lived many lives and changed many skins throughout their long career, but the reason that sealed the break with me was the stylistic choice they seem to have decided to take: a kind of goth metal with heavy 80s overtones, already extensively explored in the previous “Alpha Noir/Omega White,” especially in the second album, and which echoes heavily after repeated listens to “Extinct.”
Not a bad album, mind you, but a stylistic shift in a direction that doesn’t seem to reward them much, far from the controlled fury of “Night Eternal” (just to mention a recent work) and clearly (and without blame, I would add) light years away from their early masterworks.
After a barely convincing start, the album flows without major flaws but also without particular merits, alternating tasty tracks with others of impressive banality, almost pop songs with distorted guitars; they always share the heavy production, loaded with cloying keyboards worthy of a Berlin 80s goth club and the melodic lines that often seek the catchy chorus without finding it.
Fernando Ribeiro, always the true star, is undeniably the focus of the album and it hurts to hear him sing bland and senseless melodies like the oriental-flavored “Medusalem” but especially “The Last of Us,” almost a rip-off of Depeche Mode; personally, I shudder at the thought of one of these songs performed live alongside “Opium,” “Alma Mater,” and who knows how many others!
The best moments undoubtedly come when our guys try to break out from the anonymity of the intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus structure, especially in the ¾ pieces (“Domina” and the sickly swing of “La Baphomette”) or where they push the concept of “catchy” to an extreme and manage to be enjoyable, see the pop-ish “The Future is Dark” or the bonus tracks of the limited edition, for once a true complement to the album and not just fillers to swindle a few more euros.
I don’t know how long our separation will last and I don’t know if I will be able to forgive this latest betrayal (understanding yes, but here we are beginning to reach the limits of foolishness!) but I know that probably at the next release I will be the first to give another chance to these Lusitanian daredevils; even if I’m not sure my poor wounded heart can stand another album in this direction, I hope that the memory of works like “Night Eternal,” “Darkness and Hope,” or even “Irreligious” will convince them to retrace their steps and give us the gothic fury we deserve.
After 20 years, I think I deserve it.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Soulsick (04:16)
I'm only real -
at Places I cannot be
My right Hand rebels
and chops off the Left
(The) hairy Ape walks into Stage
He tries to stay erect
The One who never slept
in Order to be perfected
The Arrogance of their Hands
The joy of the Regret
Soulsick
Good at things I never did
Soulsick - but skin deep
Tense, frantic - but relieved
Soulsick - but skin deep
Tense, frantic - but believed
I'm only real - at Places I cannot be
Dead liquid vigilant
Implanted into my Sleep
The One who never slept
The One, who stays erect
The One who is profound
The One - I do reject
Soulsick, but Skin deep
Tense, frantic - but relieved
Soulsick, but skin deep
Tense, frantic - but believed
Soulsick
Good at things I never did
I'm only real at Places I cannot be
Soulsick - but skin deep
I'm not real, just believed in
Soulsick, but Skin deep
Not real - just believe it
02 Butterfly FX (03:51)
When I move
You move with me
I feed off you
You feast on me
And what I see
You can not see
That when I move
You move with me
Where's this small
dead hand that creeps me
I am biting it to its very bone
Collapsing with everything new on me
until it gets so very old
And what I see
You can not see
That when I move
You move with me
There is this third body
spinning fast
reducing me
into a relapse
with its crippled flaps
slow motion dims
sweetly parasited
by butterfly wings
And what I see
You can not see
That when I move
You move with me
All that is old is new again
(To be) each other spies
we're condemned
Everything is everywhere
The butterfly effect
And what I see
You can not see
I will have to kill you
Before you kill me
Everything is everywhere
The butterfly effect
04 Lustmord (03:44)
Whatever hounts me from birth on
Is licking white blood again
It is sickering in my heart
While I divide yours in two
Lustmord
I will never stop to hurt you
Lustmord
I will never stop to love you
I will never stop to hurt you
Now that I have you with me
So close together in one body
I feel so save but what about you
The soft sweet wound of normalcy
is sweating white blood again
I am fingering every inch of it
Grateful for who I am
You're my interruption
My crossroad of just one way
my object without a function
but still mine anyway
Unpredictable
When I kiss it burns
Irresistable
As a crowd of only one
I am so addicted and you are so down
You are nailed forever to my sense of lust
Lustmord
I will never stop to hurt you
Lustmord
I will never stop to love you
05 Selfabuse (04:16)
On my knees now
I'll inflict myself
some real love
On my knees now
I'll choke myself
in troubled love
On my knees now
I'll purge myself
of real love
On my knees now
I swear, I know nothing
of that troubled love
Have me, have me, have, never waste (the good) in me.
Watch me, watch me, watch me, but never try to be me.
I am a man again
through self abuse
improving myself
Through self abuse
I am a man again
through self abuse
Selfabuse
On my knees now
I'll end myself
through real love
On my knees now
I'll reveal myself in troubled blood.
Waste me, waste me, waste me, never try to beat me.
I am a man again
through self abuse
improving myself
Through self abuse
I am seeing someone
Sneaking through
my troubled blood...
I am feeling someone
Starving for my troubled love...
Waste me, waste me, waste me, never try to beat me.
Self abuse. Never try to complete with me.
10 Angelizer (04:30)
The lunar backbone stands straight and alert for a last time
The mammal feathers are revamped just for this last night
Mouthless children are breasted with their own words
To essence of their souls escaping through their giant bones
you will be paralysed
made to be believed
broken inside to survive
and to watch over me
archangel - of no use and no form
archangel - suffocating alone
multiple wounds reach the heat of an absolute zero
the eaten fluids, the flesh of the conventional hero
Heavenly levels on a full blast of lust but minimum pain
Injected wings rip backflesh and go inside again
Mouthless children suffocate
with their ancient words,
their mud-dimensional world
lactating from their shrinking bones
you will be paralysed
the corrupted seed
broken inside to survive
I will laugh at all this
archangel - with no use and no form
archangel - suffocating with blood
the eternal spectator stares at this and improvises
his holy centralbone always on a rise, always on a rise
archangel - of no use and no form
archangel - suffocating with words
11 Tired (05:24)
Maybe I am the man with those mystic two heads
one facing down, the other facing back
but I don't know who I am
and you still don't know who I am
Maybe I am the man with the legendary four hands
To finger, to heal, crave and strangulate
but I don't know who I am
and you still don't know who I am
I am exhausted of returning to a place I've never been
I am exhausted of returning from a place I've never been
Maybe I am the man of the universal two words
The lie and the lie, the scorn and the scorn
You want to know how I am
To forgive me what I am
I am exhausted of returning to a place I've never been
I am exhausted of returning from a place I've never been
I forgot who I am but I am too tired to be it
I forgot who I am but I am too tired to live/leave it
I am exhausted of returning to a place I've never been
I am exhausted of returning from a place I've never been
12 K / O mal de Cristo (12:38)
No caso do mal de Cristo o primeiro sintoma e a morte.
Calcula-se que cem milhoes de pesspas morteram do mal de Cristo.
"Eu sou o caminho". Os efeitos especiais ecoluriam multo desde Jesus.
Ora Cristo diz que se algum filho da puta te tirar metade da roupa que Ihe
des a outra metade.
Muitos tolos infelizes foram esmagados por pilhas de Litas seminus em Iuta.
Os Implacaveis do Perdao.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
Enfial a vossa lingua pela sua garganta abaixo,
Proval o que ele esteve a comer e abencoai a sua digestao
Deslizai para os seus intestinos e ajudai-o trabalhar a comida.
De-Ihe o seu amor e tera a sua aureola-extensao.
Olhos por toda a parte, no seu televisor, no quarto, no banho.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Milhares de irmaos metedicos que te cheiram, ouvem, veem, dia e noite.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
Nao ha duvida alguma, irmaos e irmas, amor e a resposta.
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