Review Summary: Moonspell plays it safe on their eighth studio album “Night Eternal”, yet deliver a fun and exciting death/gothic metal album that was one of the better releases of 2008.
"And the first went, and poured upon the earth; and there fell
A grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast (...).
"And the second angel poured out the vial upon the sea;
And it became as the blood of a dead man;
And every living soul died in the sea.
"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun;
And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
"And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air;
And there came a great voice
Out the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying: It is done." – Book of Revelation #16, John
An unsettling passage in the Bible by itself the part quoted above is, but as used by Moonspell as introduction to their eighth studio album it sounds truly terrifying. The words are whispered frantically by Moonspell’s lead vocalist Fernando Ribeiro, until he screams demonically by the end “It is done”. These Biblical phrases set the tone to one of the darkest albums Moonspell have released to date.
Night Eternal was released in 2008 and continues the trend of Moonspell revisiting their original heavy roots, much like they did on 2006’s
Memorial and 2003’s
The Antidote. While
Memorial was an overall heavy album with slowing down in tempo solely in atmospheric instrumental tracks,
Night Eternal shuns purely instrumental interludes but rather focuses on creating variation within the individual tracks. This works brilliantly – while
Memorial became predictable at times because of a lack of changes in tempo and heaviness,
Night Eternal is all the more captivating and beautiful when Moonspell holds back a little yet more crushing than ever before when they go full-throttle. This resulted in
Night Eternal being received well overall by international music critics and managing to reach both Portuguese and French album charts.
Sound-wise, Moonspell deliver no surprises on this album; the well-known combination of melodic death metal, gothic rock and a taste of Portuguese folk is maintained without experimentation. However, Moonspell continue to become more and more comfortable in their current skin and succeed in writing some of their best-crafted and most memorable songs of their career, while keeping the whole polished, catchy and accessible without ever becoming repetitive. Furthermore,
Night Eternal is more layered, darker and has a stronger gothic atmosphere than their previous effort, and resembles
The Antidote and
Irreligious more than
Memorial. Thematically,
Night Eternal concerns itself about the apocalypse, revenge, death and loss. Fernando Ribeiro succeeds in pairing
Night Eternal’s eerie music with dark and evil lyrics without getting all too cheesy.
Night Eternal starts with one of their most sinister tracks written in Moonspell’s career:
“Tragic Heights”.
“Tragic Heights” opens with the Biblical verse as quoted in the first paragraph of this review and continues as a fierce death metal assault that goes on for almost seven minutes.
“Night Eternal” – as in the title track of this album – slows down a little in tempo and has Fernando alternating his screamed vocals with his deep clean singing and is altogether a quite catchy number. Just like
“Scorpion Flower” – that has Moonspell cooperating with Anneke van Giersbergen once more to create a moody track as stellar as
“Luna” from last album – the title track was released as a single with an excellent music video.
“Shadow Sun”,
“Hers is the Twilight” and
“Spring of Rage” follow the formula of title track
“Night Eternal”; clean vocals in the verses are interchanged with fierce grunting in the choruses, and both slow guitar plucking with atmospheric keys as ferocious double bass drumming and heavy riffage are utilized, resulting in exciting and varied tracks.
“Moon in Mercury” stands out – just like the opening track of this album – as a much fiercer track that focuses wholly on overwhelming the audience with an unrelenting death metal assault.
“Dreamless (Lucifer and Lilith)” does the exact opposite; the fragile side of Moonspell is exposed here, making this a song that wouldn’t be out of place on
Darkness and Hope. Album closer
“First Light” is a slow and crushing variant of
Night Eternal’s sound that resembles older tracks such as
“Full Moon Madness”.
Concludingly, there is little wrong with the conservative approach that Moonspell take on
Night Eternal. Individually, all songs work out well, making this nine track album sound dense and leaving its listeners wanting more. Numbers that stand out the most are
“Tragic Heights”,
“Scorpion Flower”,
“Spring of Rage” and
“First Light”. Furthermore, pursuing variation rather than aggression solely – as on
Memorial – was a smart move of Moonspell, giving the softer parts the chance to develop more beautifully while the heavier parts are allowed to sound even more furious. The only thing Moonspell can be accused of is not daring to innovate here; while their older albums were always thick with new ideas and unique variations to their sound,
Night Eternal has Moonspell taking no chances at all and shun completely from experimentation. However, when playing it safe works out as well as it does here and results in a memorable but most of all a fun and enjoyable album, one cannot blame Moonspell for doing so.
