Stunning! Night Eternal is just stunning!
With somber drums pounding and oriental background singing the eighth record of Lisbon, Portuguese-based dark metallers gets introduced, which pile up to a dramatically opulent scenery entitled At Tragic Heights. Seamlessly leading over the title track Night Eternal follows, downright heavy and likewise epical, bestowing the listener with up and down running gooseflesh.
Now it’s clear, MOONSPELL go on and consequently recollect on the much cited roots, but – otherwise this formula would be too trivial – MOONSPELL combine their own past with modern spirit. On Night Eternal (at least for the Gothic genre) brutal heaviness reigns, accentuated by fragile moments of acoustic parts, choirs and whispered passages, melancholy-draped sadness and eroticizing effect of oriental melodies, embosomed by an epical and symphonic sound robe one might remember from the last Dimmu Borgir output. Night Eternal is noway kitschy or clichéd, maybe a tiny bit pathetic, but generally fast, heavy, straightforward and extremely powerful. The voice of singer Fernando Ribeiro is wicked, raw and deeply growled, while his mates maltreat necks with energetic and driving riff work, dynamics and rhythms. A perfect blend I’d say!
Highlight and my personal fave for weeks is the masterpiece entitled Scorpion Flower, stylistically different and standing out, where Ribeiro gets excellently complemented by Anneke van Giersbergen. This song goes under your skin.
The already mentioned title track, the slightly dreamy Dreamless and the grand finale First Lights can be count to the slower songs, while the rest ranges in above mentioned brutal fields.
Night Eternal is a great record, and a thoroughly sophisticated and elaborated album!