Moonspell

In Portuguese black metal, Decayed has made more of a sustained impact but MOONSPELL--from Amadora, in the Lisbon area--had a rather early impact on not just Portuguese black metal, but world black metal. A noteworthy difference in the trajecteories of these two bands was that after their early years of influential black metal, Moonspell changed direction completely and became a melodic gothic metal band. Decayed, however, has remained a black metal band.

Forming in 1989 under the name Morbid God, the members continued in the extreme metal tradition of using dark and demonic stage names. There was Langsuyar on vocals, Tetragrammaton on bass, Malah and Mantus on guitar, and Baalberith on drums. Their sound can best be described as a dark, atmospheric metal that is heavily steeped in old-school black metal. Aside from some rehearsals, the only actual release put out by Morbid God was a one-track promo in 1992, "Serpent Angel." This song also made its way onto some compilation albums.

Here is Morbid God's "Serpent Angel"

1992 was both the beginning and the end: it was the end of Morbid God, but it was the beginning of Moonspell. They quickly took the metal world by storm with 1993's Anno Satanae demo. This was a very atmospheric release, with melodic and gothic elements that would remain with the band throughout their career.

Here is the Anno Satanae demo in its entirety

In 1994, Moonspell put out their now-famous self-titled EP. It was a clear continuation of their earlier sound, but you can already hear them moving away from black metal. The songs were more riff-oriented than your standard black metal (especially considering that this was 1994), and there was a heavy emphasis on a keyboard-driven melodic atmosphere. You can definitely hear the seeds of their later gothic style on this seminal release, and they moved even more in that direction with 1995's Wolfheart.

"Tenebrarum Oratorium" comes from that 1994 self-titled EP

1995's Wolfheart gives us this track, "Wolfshade"

Wolfheart is rightly hailed as a masterpiece. It contains an excellent balance of the melodic and brutal, the gothic and the black, the romantic and the necro. The changes that came after this album are changes that have divided a lot of metal fans. Moonspell would choose to emphasize the gothic more and more, with often inconsistent results. Some of their post-Wolfheart albums alienated metalheads pretty strongly, and as such, I think that their early years are the ones worth focusing on most for the purposes of the history of black metal.

Select Discography

Anno Satanae (demo) (1993)

Under the Moonspell EP (1994)

Wolfheart (full-length) (1995)

Next time: NIFELHEIM