lukretion Blessed be the Top Albums of the Year lists! Preparing mine for The Metal Observer forced me to look back at a bunch of 2021 albums that I had overlooked at the time they were initially released. Among them there is Hermitage, Moonspell’s 12th full-length studio album (I am not counting Under Satanae that contains re-recordings of the band’s early material). In the 1990s, the Portuguese goth metallers were one of my favourite metal bands, but I somehow lost touch with their obscure art at some point during the late 2000s. Hermitage, however, gloriously reminded me why I was so in love with Moonspell during my teens: it is a superb album, dark and elegant, full of variety and class, that builds on the band’s classic sound but also ventures in new directions, subtly merging together gothic metal, extreme metal and modern progressive rock.

I have to confess that, when I gave Hermitage its first spin, it wasn’t instant love. The album sounded slick and classy, but also hazy, understated and difficult to grasp. None of the melodies or arrangements stood out. The album flowed away pleasantly, but I felt there weren’t enough moments that really grabbed my attention and pulled me in. Curiously, the same had happened to me with another Moonspell’s album, released exactly twenty years ago: 2001’s Darkness and Hope. I remember it took me many spins to fully appreciate that album, pretty much for the same reasons I initially struggled to connect with Hermitage: the melodies felt too subtle and elusive and the atmospheres too understated, to the point that the album seemingly lacked a strong character and identity. It was only after a half-dozen listens that Darkness and Hope finally opened up to me and I could fully appreciate its delicate and obscure beauty, for which I still consider it today one of the best albums by the Portuguese combo. Mindful of that experience, I decided to persevere and kept playing Hermitage until the album finally clicked with me. And, boy, I am so glad that I did.

Hermitage is an album that only a band as classy, talented and experienced as Moonspell could have written. “Mature” is probably the word I am looking for. The record oozes sophistication and aplomb as it takes the listener to a dazzling journey through different shades of dark rock anchored in the band’s classic gothic sound, but modernized with a multitude of different influences, from modern progressive/alternative rock, to psychedelia, to jazz and electronic music. All these influences are blended together with disarming simplicity, relying on minimalistic arrangements and a warm, stripped-down sound that exalts the essence of each song.

The album’s first five tracks are extraordinary, in this respect. They each explore a distinct sonic niche without failing to retain strong cohesiveness and consistency. “The Greater Good” flirts with the dark alt/prog metal of bands like Soen and Anathema, with muscular grooves and hypnotic guitar riffs, while retaining a strong gothic allure that explodes in the surprisingly heavy finale. “Common Prayers” shifts weight towards more traditional gothic rock atmospheres, while “All or Nothing” is a delicate slowburner that lulls its way through groovy drum patterns, bluesy guitar riffs and a gorgeously Floydian solo, conjuring up visions of smoky jazz clubs after midnight. Meanwhile, the almost punkish title-track brings to the fore the band’s black metal roots, and “Entitlement” harks back to the tasteful experiments with electronica that Moonspell also attempted previously in their discography (for instance, their 1998’s Sin/Pecado album).

The second half of the album is perhaps a tad less spectacular. It contains two slightly lacklustre instrumentals (though the cold piano arpeggio of “City Quitter” provides a spellbinding album finale) and a song, “Apophthegmata”, that builds on an interesting atmosphere but ultimately does not develop into much more. However, we are also treated with what is probably the best track of the LP, “The Hermit Saints”. Pretty much like the album opener, this song takes Moonspell’s classic gothic sound and reimagines it through the lens of modern alt/prog rock: Ricardo Amorim’s bouncy guitars frantically buzz their riffs over a tapestry of groovy basslines, majestic organs and shifting drum patterns (new drummer Hugo Ribeiro deserves a shout-out here for a stellar performance, perfectly balanced between muscularity and coloration), while Fernando Ribeiro switches back and forth between a deep, velvety croon and his abrasive semi-growls, creating an intoxicating final mix. The album also closes strongly with “Without Rule”, probably he Hermitage’s most surprising song, with its lysergic vibes that hark back to early Pink Floyd and 1970s psychedelia.

Hermitage is so rich and diverse, and yet at the same time so refined and restrained, that it takes time and patience to properly take in all of the album’s different shades and contours. A superficial listen may even confuse its subtlety and elegance for demureness or lack of character. Jaime Gomez Arellano’s sober and natural production adds to this false first impression, as the detailed production work only fully blossoms on repeated listens, as one learns to appreciate the exquisite balance in the mix between the different instruments and the overall sonic clarity.

As such, Hermitage is most definitely a grower, albeit one that thoroughly deserves your time investment. When the album finally opens up, it is deeply intoxicating with its obscure romantic atmosphere. The quality of Hermitage that I probably appreciate the most is how fresh, modern and exciting the record sounds while at the same time retaining Moonspell’s classic sonic identity. This stands in defiance to Fernando Ribeiro’s own words in promo interviews, where the singer questions whether the band’s time may be coming to an end. If anything, Hermitage shows that Moonspell are still a fresh and very relevant voice in today’s metal, nearly 25 years since they have moved their first steps in the scene. This is a massive achievement for the Portuguese band, and one that not many of their peers can claim to have fulfilled.

[Originally written for The Metal Observer]

siLLy puPPy While many second wave black metal bands jumped on the bandwagon and rode the wave of the template set down by bands like Mayhem and Darkthrone like a surfer in the Hawaiian Islands, some bands that started out that way jumped in and felt more like Jamaican bobsledders so they decided the status quo wasn’t quite for them. Such is the case for the Lisbon, Portugal based MOONSPELL that emerged in 1994 with the debut EP “Under The Moonspell” as a decent but indistinct black metal band but by the time they released the first full-length debut “Wolfheart” a year later, the band started to find its own niche in the quickly exploding scene. While still steeped in black metal, MOONSPELL laced it with a healthy dose of gothic metal inspired by bands like Tiamat, Type O Negative and The Gathering along with some various strains of European folk which together created a rather unique sound in the metal world.

Despite this early development of their own making, MOONSPELL abandoned this metal hybrid as quickly as it had established it and on the sophomore album IRRELIGIOUS, the black metal was totally jettisoned altogether with much of the folk music thrown by the wayside as well. What was left was a more gothic rock infused style that while tamping down the metal in general and replacing it with eerie Gregorian chants and symphonic organ sounds, still had enough metal mojo to qualify it as a metal band but in general, the gothic touches produced a more stylized production job that relied on a tapestry of instrumental sounds to create gloomy atmospheres and romantic visions of Romanian castles with blood thirsty counts on the hunt for another fix. The metal, while still quite abrasive at times had been reserved only for crescendoes and contrasts from the otherwise symphonic dominant melodrama.

The difference between IRRELIGIOUS and “Wolfheart” is stark and immediate as the album begins with a soundtrack sounding intro called “Perverse… Almost Religious” which takes spooky church organs and choral chants to evoke a full moon lit night journey into the graveyard and beyond. As “Opium” begins the nosedive into the world of everything goth, it’s also noticeable that the black metal guitar distortion has been replaced by a slicker guitar fuzz that plays in tandem with a hypnotic bass groove and slowed down percussive drive. Likewise, vocalist Fernando Ribeiro almost abandons any harsh screamed vocals except for the most dramatic moments and opts for romantic spoken poetic prose along with the clean Type O Negative style that sounds like Count Dracula has decided to make a mini-opera about his perverse proclivities.

“Wolfheart” displayed a strong sense of melodic hooks and IRRELIGIOUS continues this trend with eleven strong tracks that create instant gratification but it’s really the compositional flare that makes this such a strong album. The carefully timed developments of the dynamics, tones, timbres and bursts of aggression work out incredibly well and no moments feel like they wear out their welcome nor do they feel rushed. This is just one of those albums that teeters on the balance between too pop and too dark but somehow has enough elements of both sides of the spectrum to please. The tracks are diverse with some ranging on the slower side like “Ruin & Misery” which exudes a slow oozing use of keyboards, crunchy guitar riffage and nonchalant tempo changes. The musicians also show some extended range in their playing abilities. While the drummer simply known as Mike more or less just keeps a beat, on tracks like “For A Taste Of Eternity” he shows a flare for extremely complex polyrhythms and percussive dominance.

Overall the keyboards and samples of Pedro Paixão play the dominant role with the recording of Aleister Crowley reading his own poem “The Poet” on the track “Awake” which exemplifies the occult feel of the album as a whole. IRRELIGIOUS is a nicely paced album that is ultimately an atmospheric gothic rock album with metal touches that take it to heavy heights at key moments. The alternating forces of the symphonic rock and the more sonorous metal sections works quite well as do the stylistic percussion changes and guitar sounds that range from echoey clean to the intemperate unleashed loudness. MOONSPELL was one of those bands that couldn’t quite decide where they wanted to stay for long and despite crafting a cleverly cool and wickedly wild ride with this goth metal classic, the band would change things up again and get more experimental on the following “Sin / Pecado” but for this one at least MOONSPELL proved that they had an incredibly keen sense of what it takes to craft the perfect sensual sensibilities that make a great goth rock / metal album.

siLLy puPPy WOLFHEART is the debut album by MOONSPELL which incorporates a nice mix of metal styles. Following the approach of their earlier EP “Under The Moonspell,” we get a more refined blend of black and Gothic metal mixed with Celtic folk and symphonic touches. The transition from black metal to Gothic metal is taking place on WOLFHEART as the blackened touches are softened and the Gothic elements are increased. The intro with eerie synths and soft guitar sets the tone and atmosphere of a darkened land where blood thirsty wolves and Pagan rituals dominate with lunar madness.

This album really goes all over the place. It starts out in a symphonic black metal fashion but has tracks such as “Lua D’Inverno” that sound more like Pagan Celtic rituals. The vocals are heavily in the Goth department and Fernando Ribeiro’s vocals play the perfect part of a blood sucking romeo and bring other Gothic metal bands of the day to mind such as Type O Negative, Tiamat and early Paradise Lost. The song structures are well laid out with aggressive and the lush sensual symphonic parts working well together. The female backing vocals by Birgit Zacher are particularly haunting.

WOLFHEART is a very consistent album and it’s a testament to an era when various styles of metal were mixing with various forms of folk music and symphonic touches. MOONSPELL displays a strong command of this hybridity and becomes one of the most successful metal exports from Portugal. While some Gothic metal barely falls into the metal category focusing more on the romantic and sensual rather than the head banging aspects, WOLFHEART displays everything that makes a great Gothic metal album while retaining some excellent black metal aggressive fury as well without going as far as adding blastbeats or turning up the fury to up to extreme levels.

siLLy puPPy If the cover of UNDER THE MOONSPELL looks familiar its because the album “Under Satanae” has a very close variation of the cover from this debut EP. That is no coincidence since that much more recognized release contains remakes of many of the tracks on this EP. Despite the fact that many of these tracks have been rereleased and improved upon that doesn't negate the fact that these first editions are fairly well constructed tracks themselves. MOONSPELL proved from the getgo that they were a talented and unique entity in the metal world by creatively fusing folk, black and gothic elements together to suit their own purposes. The result is a very successful hybrid that delivers melody, aggression and vampire inspired themes.

MOONSPELL is probably one of the most famous metal acts to emerge from Portugal and on this debut album they lay it all down without hesitation. We hear all the elements that make great metal music churned out in a carefully crafted format. This music really floats my boat as it takes all the elements of the aforementioned metal subgenres and blends them together into a satisfying cohesive whole. Despite the unintelligible lyrics we get the lyrical themes of dark folklore and macabre poetry in both English and Portuguese. In a country where I would expect influences from such homegrown music as Fado and the like, MOONSPELL surprises by integrating a more Celtic folk sound with their blackened Gothic metal in a way that is obvious as to why they have become a major force in the metal world.

Warthur I tend to be rather sceptical of metal bands making rerecordings, but I'd make Under Satanae by Moonspell a major exception to this. Since the original Anno Satanae and Under the Moonspell demos, which these songs had taken from, the sound of the band had radically transformed from a black metal-dominated sound (with influences of folk and gothic metal beginning to emerge on Under the Moonspell) to a much more predominantly gothic sound.

The genius move Moonspell make here is in not trying to recapture their early sound, but instead adapting these old songs to their new sound, slowing them down, teasing out the gothic and folk metal flourishes that had already been there, and adding further layers of gothic menace besides. The end result is a radical reinterpretation of the material in question which retains a little more black metal fury than was typical for Moonspell at this point in their career but at the same time presents a fresh and new look at these songs, so the rerecording does not feel redundant or unnecessary next to the originals. It's not quite an essential part of their discography, but only because the material they are building on here was when always rather rudimentary compared to their more developed works.

Memo to any other metal band contemplating a rerecording: don't bother unless it's at least a major departure from the original versions as this one is.