Dark Tranquillity (support: Moonspell & Hiraes)
Saturday, 19 April 2025, 7:15 PM – 11:10 PM
Ljubljana / Kino Šiška / Slovenia
This pre-Easter Saturday evening, Kino Šiška dressed up in predominantly melodic death metal colors — black ones, naturally. Predominantly, because Moonspell don’t quite fit into that particular box. Despite a pretty decent turnout, the show wasn’t sold out — the metal evening running as part of Ortofest may well have been a factor. That said, the sheer longevity of both headliners still drew fans of every generation to Šiška, including visitors from neighboring countries.
Unfortunately, work commitments kept us tied up long enough that we missed the set by German act Hiraes. They’re a young band who used their half-hour slot to showcase their recently released album Dormant — but by all accounts left the crowd lukewarm, particularly vocalist Britta Görtz, who had wowed audiences in Cripper in earlier years.
Moonspell are considered pioneers of gothic metal and unquestionably the number-one act on the Portuguese metal scene, full stop. The band has been going for more than three decades, releasing 12 studio albums in that time, with their debut, Wolfheart, celebrating its 30th anniversary this very year. True to those numbers, the Portuguese paid tribute to their fans at Kino Šiška and spent a good hour-plus walking through a generous stretch of their back catalogue.
An opening pair from their second album Irreligious was followed by Common Prayers, the only track played from their current album Hermitage. Bandleader and frontman Fernando Ribeiro steered the band through the set with aplomb, keeping the room fired up throughout. The band’s chemistry is impossible to miss — with the exception of drummer Hugo Ribeiro (no, he’s not related to Fernando), who joined Moonspell in 2020, the rest of the lineup have been playing together for more than 20 years, with Fernando and keyboardist Pedro Paixão there from the very start. Mid-set, Pedro briefly stepped away from his ‘keys’ for a couple of songs, strapped on an electric guitar, and joined Aires on bass and Ricardo on guitar down at the front of the stage.
While Moonspell have mostly played Slovenia as part of Metalcamp and Metaldays, this show was a genuinely fresh addition to Ljubljana’s live music calendar. From the melancholic rhythms and melodies that, at their most delicate, edged into Depeche Mode territory, through to the driving rhythms of Alma Mater — it all goes to show that Moonspell, after all this time, still know exactly how it’s done.
In the late 1980s, three names crawled out of the primordial soup brewing in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, that would leave a massive mark on the metal scene and, above all, forge a brand-new subgenre — melodic death metal. Those names were At the Gates, In Flames, and Saturday night’s headliners, Dark Tranquillity. The latter two have had their fair share of lineup shuffles — Anders Fridén was actually Dark Tranquillity’s original vocalist, and Mikael Stanne was In Flames’. In 1993, after the release of Dark Tranquillity’s debut Skydancer, Fridén left the band and Stanne stepped up to the mic. Around a decade ago, the band went through a wave of lineup changes, leaving Stanne as the sole founding member.
How do this rejuvenated Dark Tranquillity hold up in practice? Brilliantly. The Swedes had already played to Slovenian audiences at Tolminator last year, but the band under Stanne’s leadership shows no signs of slowing down. They say you have to lead by example, and that’s one criticism you simply can’t level at him. Not only has he been steering his primary band into a fourth decade — in recent years he also took on vocal duties in The Halo Effect, the melodeath outfit he put together with old friends from those early-days bands, as well as the gothic Cemetery Skyline, whose debut has won over fans of melancholic music the world over. All of which speaks to his versatility — switching between death metal growls and clean vocals doesn’t cost him a thing.
And so it was on Saturday at Šiška. Vocals rock-solid — growled and clean alike — and the same went for his interaction with the audience and the band. Behind him, Martin Brändström layered in the atmospheric touches — the only other band member who was there through the wild ’90s, when together they crafted the sound that defined their vision of melodic death metal. The guitar duo of Reinholdz and Karmark played tight but made for a fun contrast — while Reinholdz brought the dark stares and full ‘tr00 metal’ energy, the Dane who only joined the band last year was all constant grins, giving Stanne a run for his money as the mood-keeper onstage! Nilsson on drums and Jansson on bass held their own and delivered a solid performance throughout.
The hour-and-a-half set was predictably weighted toward the new album Endtime Signals, but it was a pleasant surprise to see as many as four tracks apiece from 2002’s Damage Done and 2007’s Fiction make the setlist. The solid attendance and crowd participation proved that neither Moonspell nor Dark Tranquillity are ready for the scrapheap just yet.
Author: Jerneja Jerak Videc & Sebastijan Videc
Photos: Sebastijan Videc
Moonspell
Dark Tranquility
