Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Moonspell
Label: Napalm Records
Release: 2015
Length: 45:37
Rating: 4/5
Portuguese masters of gothic gloom Moonspell are back with their 11th studio album »Extinct«. Three years after the ambitious »Alpha Noir« (best picked up in the edition with the bonus album »Omega White«), this batch of 10 new tracks keeps following the path of transition that Moonspell have been shamelessly flirting with for the past few years. They’ve always been a band that was never scared to try out new sonic and stylistic dimensions and work them into their musical body. All the while, to this very day, Moonspell have kept nurturing and perfecting their own one-of-a-kind way of expressing themselves in music. Their music, or rather their body of work, earns the band a special place on the metal scene.
»Extinct« is once again packed with arrogantly ultra-melodic, instantly infectious dynamics that grab you from the first moment of the album to the last. Put superficially, »Extinct« is a kind of combination of »Alpha Noir« and »Omega White«. The band has honed the arrangements to a shine in compositions full of ravishing, melodically flawless lead melodies, stuffed with orchestral elements to the point where only Ribeiro’s brutalized vocal occasionally recalls the old story of black metal, and even that can no longer be filed under growling. The brutal vocal is of course still alive and well in Moonspell today, as the opener Breathe shows right away, followed by the title track, but more and more it’s Ribeiro’s clean, mid-to-deep, manly low-register voice that steps into the foreground, one that now and then pulls us toward Peter Steele (Tyope O’Negative). That’s what you get one after another on Domina, The Last Of Us and Malignia, and later on the album on The Future Is Dark, a track that will surely become one of the band’s concert favorites for fans. As a composition, it has all the makings of a hit single. It’s all there with polished chorus hooks, and you’ll have to pick the album’s favorites for yourselves. Funeral Bloom has an especially tight gothic suspension and, in fact, a flirtation with the post-punk of the eighties, when bands like Sisters of Mercy or Mission were making their mark. On this track the brutal and clean vocals are deliberately combined in contrast. The atmospheric effect, the creation of highly vibrant moods, is hypnotically captivating. The track Meduzalem trades in Arabic melos and delivers yet another detour on the album.
The work of both guitars is once again full of subtle brilliance. The solos are hair-splittingly polished, with an optimal spacing of notes and tones. They’re placed at exactly the right spots in the middle instrumental sections, so they work extremely effectively in building up the moods and strengthen them further with the lead motifs. That fact alone confirms the band’s great experience, as they serve up the craft of composing with feather-light ease.
The new album feels a touch »brighter« than its predecessor, even though it’s convincingly steeped in melancholy and gloom. It also feels »softer«, precisely because of the dominance of calm moments, perfectly dosed with atmosphere, where Ribeiro’s distinctive, passionately felt, strikingly deep vocal takes the lead role. Those moments dominate the album. What’s missing is the experimenting with electronics that Moonspell pulled off so successfully on »Omega White«. An album of further dark softening of the sonic picture, it doesn’t reveal any stylistic revolution. So Moonspell have delivered an album tailor-made for their fans. A gorgeous, polished new entry in the band’s rich discography, though this time they put more weight on sophisticated arrangements, which take priority over the extreme forms of metal on the album.
Lineup
Fernando Ribeiro – vocals
Ricardo Amorim – guitar
Pedro Paixão – keyboards, guitar
Aires Pereira – bass guitar
Miguel Gaspar – drums
Production
Jens Bogren
Tracklist
1. Breathe (Until We Are No More)
2. Medusalem
3. Funeral Bloom
4. Domina
5. La Baphomette
6. The Last of Us
7. A Dying Breed
8. Malignia
9. Extinct
10. The Future Is Dark
11. La Baphomette
