Extinct Moonspell

• 1Breathe (Until We Are No More)05:32
• 2Extinct04:42
• 3Medusalem05:06
• 4Domina05:08
• 5The Last of Us03:25
• 6Malignia05:06
• 7Funeral Bloom04:10
• 8A Dying Breed04:29
• 9The Future Is Dark05:08
• 10La Baphomette02:47
• 11Until We Are No Less (Bonus Track)07:02
• 12Doomina (Bonus Track)04:49
• 13Last of Them (Bonus Track)05:23
• 14The Past Is Darker (Bonus Track)05:42
• Total Runtime01:08:29

Info for Extinct

Portuguese pioneers Moonspell first brought the dark flames to their native country – and then set the rest of the world aflame with milestones such as Irreligious or Night Eternal. Indeed eleventh studio album Extinct erects another monument to sundowns and those dark hours and lets Fernando Ribeiro`s sombre vocals collide with modern riffing, blackened melodies and operatic grandeur. Always one step ahead of the rest, always resisting all genre boundaries!

While I haven’t been what you would call a die-hard Moonspell fan in some time, I was captivated by their sound long ago in the early 2000s and have been doing a decent job of keeping up with them ever since, and when I heard they were coming out with a new record, I wanted to see what the Portuguese black-metal-turned-goth-metalers were up to these days. It turns out something new and different, albeit very taste specific.

The group is famous for reinventing their sound over and over, but it always manages to surprise me due to how much they really do a complete overhaul of a lot of their mechanics when it comes to making music. Still, they always manage to keep things mystical and sing about all kinds of esoteric nonsense that gives you goosebumps, which I think is the one thing fans have consistently come to expect from the group.

The new record, Extinct, definitely follows the pattern of changing things up while only keeping a few things consistent. The first song starts out with their traditional mysterious-sounding vocals and heavy bass, but manage not to leave much to be desired in the heaviness department, either. The title track is probably one of the strongest on the album, and ‘Medusalem’ takes a foray into the all-out gothy rather than goth-metaly. ‘Domina’ might be my favorite track from the whole record, as I have always favored their slower and more plodding songs. ‘The Future is Dark’ and ‘A Dying Breed’ are both big hits in my book as well because of their similarity to The Antidote, which is my favorite record of theirs by far.

All in all, I would have to say there is not much not to love about this record, if you are a Moonspell fan. Of course, they are a very particular sounding band, and some metal fans just don’t dig their stuff. If I may be annoyingly self-indulgent for a second, this band is not something I would normally listen to. I don’t get into much other metal like it, but I was into Moonspell back when I was first figuring out what I liked in metal, and while I didn’t go the route of this sub-sub-genre, their particular sound and energy stuck with me. In a musical landscape as fickle as metal, I feel like that has to at least count for something.

Moonspell

Produced by Jens Bogren

MOONSPELL
was formed in 1992 from the ashes of Morbid God, a project they started in 1989.

After a couple of years of making a name in the underground, they finally got into a bigger crowd with the release of Wolfheart, via Century Media, in 1995.

The band started touring intensively, and in 1996 they released their breakthrough LP Irreligious which brought the Portuguese band to the forefront of Gothic Metal.

Since then Moonspell has put out nine solid studio releases. Their last album Extinct was number #1 in Portugal and a chartbreaker in many countries, and they have succeeded in celebrating their 25th anniversary on the road, a bit everywhere in the world.

Moonspell will release their new album (a concept about Lisbon’s Great Earthquake) via Napalm Records on the 3rd of November. Is their first album totally sung in Portuguese, their native language. Also the DVD Lisboa Under the Spell, recorded live at Portugal’s capital, is seeing the light of the day in the Summer of 2018.

They have announced an Iberian tour for the new album in November 2017 already, and a support tour for Cradle of Filth, starting in January 2018, throughout all of Europe.

This album contains no booklet.