Metal Anarchy

Moonspell will be releasing a new album, titled “Far From God,” on July 3. A music video for the effort’s title track will debut on March 25.

Vocalist Fernando Ribeiro commented on the album during a Q&A session on the band’s Instagram:

“Let’s say the people that have listened to it now so far call it the ‘Irreligious’ [MOONSPELL’s second album, which came out in 1996] of the 21st century. And why? Because we had many places to go, so we are going to a place that is more familiar to us. So, it’s a gothic metal album. It’s an album that doesn’t have the social or quite the philosophical tones of other albums. It’s a very simple album. It’s very melodic. It’s very atmospheric. It’s very delicate and it’s very emotional for us too. It was recorded in Porto [Portugal] during these past few months with Jaime Gomez Arellano, the one that worked with us on ‘Hermitage’. There’s going to be a lot of clean vocals, yeah. But it’s also MOONSPELL. The fortunate people that have listened to it so far, people that work with us, the producer, close friends, they say it’s MOONSPELL. And for us it’s the best compliment.

It’s very, very hard to speak about our own music, and why? Because it’s an important part of our life and hopefully an important part of your life too. So the best things in life, I think, you fail to explain. It’s just a question of feeling. But what we have tried to do on this album was to try to underline some characteristics of MOONSPELL, which are more bordering the romantic and more bordering the existential vibes of our band and of our music and of our life.”

He went on to discuss the writing process:

“It was a difficult album to write. We had a lot of trial and error. I made, like, 50-something [sets of] lyrics. I had 10 album titles, and that’s not very common in MOONSPELL.”

He also explained the lengthy wait:

“In a nutshell, after ‘Hermitage’, you know what happened. There was the pandemic, there was a lot of stuff, picking up life, picking up the pieces, I would say, and finding out the direction. So the direction we did, it’s what we do the best, I think. It’s the gothic metal.

It has a bit of everything, I have to say, of the MOONSPELL nature. There are songs that are quite dark and a bit disturbing. There are songs that are very uplifting, but I think, really, it’s the ‘Irreligious’ of the 21st century. It’s an album that doesn’t have anything else than gothic and metal.”

He also talked about leaning into the band’s “gothic” side this time around:

“I’ve been listening to a lot of gothic music, not only the old legends, like FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM or THE SISTERS OF MERCY, LOVE LIKE BLOOD or BAUHAUS, et cetera, but also the FRENCH POLICE, TWIN TRIBES, a lot of Spanish goth too. And I really got into that vibe. So, we decided to go that way. It’s always hard to choose. We could make a heavier album. We could make an album in Portuguese. We could make an album industrial-like. So that’s the price of the MOONSPELL freedom. I think every fan has [their] moments with our music. Some albums were not very well understood at the beginning and then they were catching up. I think ‘Hermitage’ still has a lot of catching up to do. So let’s see how ‘Far From God’ gets you. I think it’s really a beautiful album.

To be honest, after this revival of gothic, with especially those bands, more electro bands, TWIN TRIBES, FRENCH POLICE, et cetera, I felt that the ‘gothic metal’ term was just easily abused. Because a lot of it doesn’t have pain, doesn’t have love, doesn’t have desperation. It’s just the flowers, but not the wither flowers. So it’s just the stardust but not the dust. So we decided to bring this melancholy back.”

He also added the following about the cover art:

“We’re gonna reveal it soon, probably on the March 25th too. Why not? Because I think the album is going to be on presale since March 25th already. So, the cover artwork, it’s made by Eliran Kantor. It’s a beautiful cover artwork. I loved it since the day I saw the sketch. It’s not probably the cover you expected from MOONSPELL — I don’t know why — but, yeah, I think it’s beautiful. And if fits really the album. There’ll be two or three music videos for this album. The first one is coming 25th of March.”

[via Blabbermouth]