CD

MOONSPELL return via Napalm Records with Far From God, a record born out of five years of creative searching, doubt and ultimate rediscovery. Far from playing it safe, the Portuguese pioneers deliver a work that feels like a rebirth: darker, sharper and emotionally unfiltered. Rather than bending to modern trends, MOONSPELL double down on identity and substance. Far From God is a bold and beautiful statement of Gothic Metal in its purest form: dark, romantic, dramatic and unapologetically heavy.
The first single and album title track, “Far From God”, sets the album’s tone with burning intensity. A hymn to tragic vampiric love, the song revives the mystique and romantic darkness that once defined the genre, while layered keyboards subtly expand the atmosphere without softening its heaviness. Dense guitars, deep resonant vocals and dramatic dynamic shifts evoke a timeless gothic aesthetic, restoring danger and elegance to the narrative of the vampire.
Songs such as “Cross Your Heart” reveal a more affirmative side of the album, built on brooding melodic motifs and grounded, deliberate riff work that balances restraint and impact. Echoing the spirit of the band’s past while embracing a modern, shadowed edge, the song reflects on roadside shrines and lives lost too soon; the steady forward drive of the rhythm section mirrors the endless motion of the road itself. Fernando Ribeiro’s unmistakable and singular vocal presence, moving between low gravitas and restrained intensity, reinforces the song’s emotional weight without excess.
With “The Great Wolf in the Sky” feat. Alicia Nuhro (strings), MOONSPELL deliver one of the album’s most epic moments, structured around expansive keyboard themes, harmonized guitar lines and a chorus built for collective resonance. Melancholic yet powerful, the track stands as a tribute to wolves who once walked alongside the band and to a fan and friend who passed before hearing the album, bridging MOONSPELL’s past, present and future in one sweeping, dignified anthem.
Thematically, Far From God moves through Baudelairian love, existential guilt and redemption, Christlike resurrections and the quiet nobility of creatures of the night. Vampires, werewolves and sacred symbolism are not escapism here, but vehicles for genuine dark emotion: solemn, romantic and unfiltered. The album rejects artificial gloss in favour of fantasy grounded in sincerity, rediscovering the heart of Gothic Metal in its most authentic form.
MOONSPELL’s forthcoming magnum opus – produced with Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Sólstafir, Ghost among many others) – shines like a black diamond, luminous yet shadowed in texture and colour, both musically and sonically. It reconnects with the darker spirit of MOONSPELL’s classic era while sounding powerful and contemporary. Far From God is not nostalgia; it is a statement. A Gothic Metal hallelujah. MOONSPELL’s Irreligious of the 21st century. It’s not only a powerful reminder that MOONSPELL remain a defining force in the genre they helped shape, but an album that will truly save Gothic Metal from boredom and predictability!

MOONSPELL return via Napalm Records with Far From God, a record born out of five years of creative searching, doubt and ultimate rediscovery. Far from playing it safe, the Portuguese pioneers deliver a work that feels like a rebirth: darker, sharper and emotionally unfiltered. Rather than bending to modern trends, MOONSPELL double down on identity and substance. Far From God is a bold and beautiful statement of Gothic Metal in its purest form: dark, romantic, dramatic and unapologetically heavy.
The first single and album title track, “Far From God”, sets the album’s tone with burning intensity. A hymn to tragic vampiric love, the song revives the mystique and romantic darkness that once defined the genre, while layered keyboards subtly expand the atmosphere without softening its heaviness. Dense guitars, deep resonant vocals and dramatic dynamic shifts evoke a timeless gothic aesthetic, restoring danger and elegance to the narrative of the vampire.
Songs such as “Cross Your Heart” reveal a more affirmative side of the album, built on brooding melodic motifs and grounded, deliberate riff work that balances restraint and impact. Echoing the spirit of the band’s past while embracing a modern, shadowed edge, the song reflects on roadside shrines and lives lost too soon; the steady forward drive of the rhythm section mirrors the endless motion of the road itself. Fernando Ribeiro’s unmistakable and singular vocal presence, moving between low gravitas and restrained intensity, reinforces the song’s emotional weight without excess.
With “The Great Wolf in the Sky” feat. Alicia Nuhro (strings), MOONSPELL deliver one of the album’s most epic moments, structured around expansive keyboard themes, harmonized guitar lines and a chorus built for collective resonance. Melancholic yet powerful, the track stands as a tribute to wolves who once walked alongside the band and to a fan and friend who passed before hearing the album, bridging MOONSPELL’s past, present and future in one sweeping, dignified anthem.
Thematically, Far From God moves through Baudelairian love, existential guilt and redemption, Christlike resurrections and the quiet nobility of creatures of the night. Vampires, werewolves and sacred symbolism are not escapism here, but vehicles for genuine dark emotion: solemn, romantic and unfiltered. The album rejects artificial gloss in favour of fantasy grounded in sincerity, rediscovering the heart of Gothic Metal in its most authentic form.
MOONSPELL’s forthcoming magnum opus – produced with Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Sólstafir, Ghost among many others) – shines like a black diamond, luminous yet shadowed in texture and colour, both musically and sonically. It reconnects with the darker spirit of MOONSPELL’s classic era while sounding powerful and contemporary. Far From God is not nostalgia; it is a statement. A Gothic Metal hallelujah. MOONSPELL’s Irreligious of the 21st century. It’s not only a powerful reminder that MOONSPELL remain a defining force in the genre they helped shape, but an album that will truly save Gothic Metal from boredom and predictability!

Italian Symphonic Black Metal Legends OPERA IX has been co-existing with us normal deadly people since 1988. Spreading their sounds, moods and chants across the globe in a soon 40-year career they are true phenomenon. Some might even say a force of nature or an element of their own. The myths are many, and the tales are long and plentiful.

The band elaborates further:

“Veneficium” is a pilgrimage through the labyrinth of the dark arts, a botanical dominion that only the wisdom of women dared to master. These are the echoes of a primal past that still thrum within our blood and resonate in our souls ensuring that such a legacy shall never be surrendered to oblivion.”

The stability of the band despite lineup changes stands as a proof of the dedication of the group and the individual sacrifices and dedication to the cause. An entity with its own occult spirit with core consisting of founder Ossian and vocalist Dispas who joined in 2018.

Conceived in solitude and wrought by Solace alone, "An Oath Undone" marks the latest invocation of Forlorn Citadel as a hermetic monument to decay, memory, and the deliberate erosion of purpose. Eschewing collaboration and concession, the album unfolds as a single consciousness fracturing inward, its compositions shaped by medieval ruin, funereal restraint, and a reverence for absence as much as sound. Rather than offering resolution, "An Oath Undone" lingers in suspension, tracing the slow unbinding of sworn ideals and the hollow resonance they leave behind, like vows whispered into collapsed stone. In this work, Solace does not document loss so much as ritualize it, sealing Forlorn Citadel further from the present world and into a timeless, inward-facing realm where honor survives only as echo and ash.

A whole decade after their last album, Portuguese gothic/dark metal pioneers HEAVENWOOD announce the release of their highly-anticipated new record, “The Tarot Of The Bohemians – Part II”, set for worldwide release via Mighty Music on LP, CD and digital formats. Marking the second and final chapter of the conceptual work inspired by the hermetic writings of Gérard Encausse (Papus), the album was recorded at Lucky Cat Studio (Portugal) and mixed and mastered at Vamacara Studios (France) by acclaimed producer Niko HK Krauss (Loudblast, Sirenia), elevating the band’s sound to new levels of sophistication and intensity.

“Every work has its own story, and this new album goes far beyond being merely a concept and a continuation of the first part released in 2016”, composer, founder, guitarist and singer Ricardo Dias dos Santos comments. “Against all odds that arose in 2022 - after a near-fatal accident and imperative changes that led to a number of irreversible decisions - the conclusion of “The Tarot Of The Bohemians” finally sees the light of day, continuing a legacy that has endured for more than 30 years”.

The album is further enhanced by impeccable and symbolic visual artwork created by renowned artist Naya Kotko, whose evocative imagery perfectly reflects the esoteric depth and spiritual duality that define this new chapter.

With this “Part II” of the concept started with “The Tarot Of The Bohemians” (Massacre Records) in 2016, Heavenwood dive even deeper into the esoteric and emotional dimensions of the Tarot. This album represents both continuity and transformation - it carries Heavenwood melancholic DNA, but it also pushes the band into a more cinematic, intense and contemporary sonic realm.

Monolithe’s debut album “I” remastered re-issue! One epic track of uncompromising cosmic Doom Metal!

Double full-length album out now on Double CD in jewel case.