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When Moonspell burst onto the scene in the mid 90’s, their unique blend of gothic metal garnered instant attention from fans and critics alike. Albums such as Wolfheart & Irrireligious are essentially metal classics and probably should be owned by anyone even slightly interested in the gothic metal genre. When you hit the ground running though it can sometimes be hard to maintain the momentum, and the consensus seems to be that their follow up material failed to live up to the expectations of those initial classics. That is not a knock against Moonspell though, for dismissing their discography would be a vital error. In fact after 12 plus years in the business and 7 albums the guys have very much made a name for themselves as Portugal’s finest metal band. Personally I really enjoyed their 2004 Antidote album and considered it a highly effective, underrated record. After extensive touring following that record we now get a new album, Memorial. Fans of Antidote and their earlier works should be very pleased with the latest release.
Moonspell at this point in time seems to have abandoned most of their experimental approach seen with some of the late 90’s material in favor of a more straightforward but sharper gothic sound. The majority of the songs maintains some of the atmosphere of past releases, but is more driven by guitars, and to be honest, sounds overall heavier than previous volumes. The tortured vocals of Fernando Ribeiro are (as usual) a constant strong point on this record and now he has almost entirely forgone the clean vocals that were used in the past in favor of a black metal type yell. In fact, even though the production is fairly polished, there is a black metal vibe found here, similar to some of their earlier work. This contributes to the whole undertone of the album, which can be described as DARK. While this is certainly not a groundbreaking new theme for the band, there is still something to be said of the way Memorial hauntingly combines aspects of horror and beauty. The lyrics are of course well thought poetic gems influenced by the likes of Wilde, Poe, & Portuguese history. You can’t be in the business for this long and not have decent songwriting skills and the versatility of the tunes on Memorial is what sets it apart. Songs like “Finisterra” & “Upon the Blood Of Men” are a hard slabs of dark metal, while others such as “Sanguine” & “Luna” are more mesmerizing encounters. The close out “Best Forgotten” is a 14-minute epic of a song that showcases a little bit of everything, a great song to end the album on. As a complete package Memorial is indeed quite memorable and stands as one of the better Moonspell albums in their lofty catalogue.
| Tracklist |
| 1. In Memoriam (Intro) |
| 2. Finisterra |
| 3. Memento Mori |
| 4. Sons Of Earth |
| 5. Blood Tells! |
| 6. Upon The Blood Of Men |
| 7. At The Image Of Pain |
| 8. Sanguine |
| 9. Proliferation |
| 10. Once It Was Ours! |
| 11. Mare Nostrum |
| 12. Luna |
| 13. Best Forgotten |
: 59.31
| Buy other Moonspell albums |
