The Antidote by Moonspell

With The Antidote, MOONSPELL present to the world their seventh album and again the Portuguese combo shed their skin as occurs after every reptilian growth period.

While their only demo Anno Satanae (1993) was still deeply rooted in Norwegian style black metal their debut mini-album Under The Moonspell (1994) countered the Nordic gruffness with the heavy powers of seduction of nocturnal eroticism. Still, MOONSPELL changed again and catapulted themselves right to the top of the growing gothic metal scene with the disturbing Wolfheart (1995). The album was swaying between nightmares, seductive rhythms and aggression… all qualities that condensed to a climax of deepest emotion on their break-through album Irreligious (1996). Instead of taking the safe path to success, MOONSPELL’s restless creativity lead to a phase of searching. You can call Sin/Pecado (1998) almost strangely subdued and dark, whereas The Butterfly Effect (1999) attracted attention with its brutal electronic experiments. Within two years the band had changed dramatically – maybe even a little too dramatically for some of their fans. This turned around with the release of Darkness And Hope (2001): At first sight the album seemed like a step back to their gothic metal roots, but it really turned out to be the next step in their development. For the first time the band recorded with producer Hiili Hiilesmaa (HIM, Sentenced) in Finnvox Studios in Helsinki, Finland. The result was an extended, atmospheric sound-picture which displayed the Portuguese’s emotional strengths. During festivals and tours (in Europe with their labelmates Tiamat and Flowing Tears) the fans embraced their favourites with open arms back from “darkness”, their experimental phase was obviously soon forgiven and thus the band’s “hope” fulfilled.

Now, The Antidote is released and again MOONSPELL gratefully eschew delivering a simple sequel to its successful predecessor. Instead, the Portuguese hired their old producer Waldemar Sorychta, who had looked after all their albums from Wolfheart until Sin/Pecado, for the preproduction in their own Inferno Studio in Portugal. You can find fierce eruptions of harsh vehemence like “In And Above Men” or “The Southern Deathstyle” which had almost seemed lost to MOONSPELL.

For the recording they went back to Finnvox Studios and recorded with Hiili Hiilesmaa, ensuring the phenomenal sound of songs like the single and video-track “Everything Invaded” or “Lunar Still”. The long maturation that MOONSPELL experienced and went through despite their continuous release of records becomes obvious in the lush richness of details as well as a dynamic tension which leads through The Antidote like its central thread. By now, Fernando Ribeiro’s vocals pull out all the stops of expression, from whispered fear or heavy melancholy to brutal belligerence. With the introduction of a new, Mediterranean-like dancing rhythm (“From Lowering Skies”) drummer Mike Gaspar has seemingly developed another new, unmistakeable trademark for the Portuguese. The string-fraction delivers the necessary background between acoustic tenderness and deadly rage, staged by Hiili with great transparency. Additionally, their line-up was strengthened by Amorphis’ very own Niclas Etelävuori on bass.

But MOONSPELL’s artistic demands always spread further than just music. With Irreligious they had already set literary models to music. The Song “Herr Spiegelmann” was influenced by Patrik Süsskind’s novel The Perfume, while “Opium” was based on the works of the Portuguese’s poet Fernando Pessoas. Unfortunately the song brought up false moral watchdogs who accused

MOONSPELL of glorifying drugs which was definitely not the truth. Nonetheless, the rumour-mongers managed to have them banned from MTV. The press in Portugal was enraged and the whole thing turned out to grant them more promotion rather than causing any real damage. For The Antidote, MOONSPELL are taking the opposite direction and conquer new grounds. On the basis of the lyrics, music and spirit of the new songs the Portuguese upcoming, young author José Luís Peixoto wrote a collection of short stories that form a novella which will be published by the publishing company Temas e Debates, as well as released as strictly limited Digibook including MOONSPELL’s CD in Portugal. An English translation (by Richard Zenith) will be available as multi-media feature on all other versions of The Antidote. José Luís Peixoto is one of the most promising young novelists from Europe and has already been awarded several literary prizes in Portugal. For example he won the José Saramago Prize (one of the most prestigious prizes for literature in Portugal) for his novel Not Even A Gaze, published by his publishing company Temas e Debates in 2000, while his work has been translated and published in many different languages worldwide.

With The Antidote, MOONSPELL present themselves in a new shape in the world of music after another stylistic and textual transcendence. This new shape is rooted in all traditions and phases of the band, but also represents another step in their artistic development. Perhaps some words from frontman Fernando Ribeiro assist the attempt to approach their shimmering work and the classification of this band, which has always been tough to pin down: “What is MOONSPELL?” Even I have problems with the answer to this question. I’d say we are representing a mixture of horror and beauty, heaviness and melody. The Antidote starts off very brutal and ends very melodic. This way we close the circle. This is MOONSPELL.”

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