Wolfheart
Powermetal with Folkmusical and Black metal inspiration from Portugal is
what this is. Very good too, original with great sound and a quality
that is amazing - what a production. Some of it reminds a bit of Cradle
of Filth's debut album even though this isn't much B.M. at all, but two
tracks is what you might call vampire metal much like them on "The
Principles of Evil made Flesh". They use folkmusic inspired keyboards and
instruments. They also got some additional female vocals with high
quality which makes a nice complement to the music. The more folkmusical
tracks reminds a bit of Storm's album but in this case the folkmusical
inspiration is more southern more like Primordial. The album I've got is
a digi-pack edition with a very cool and professional cover with wolves
that's fighting (shown right with new logo above). The ordinary CD has a
cool cover too (shown left) and has their cool logo on it (also to the
left), but on the digi you get an extra track. This track has much
folkmusical inspiration and is in fact one of the better ones. Over all
is this one of those albums that you can play over and over again without
getting bored and the songs can really get stuck in your head. This album
is definitely one of my all time favorites.
Rated 
Vampiria.wav sound file
Alma Mater.wav sound file
Irreligious
Well, Moonspell are developing more and more, but I don't quite like
the direction. Sure this is a very good album which I recommend, but
how will they sound in the future? Anyway the music is much like the
softer parts on the previous album, soft heavy doom metal with a death
metal touch to it. The material is some of the best they've done I
must say, reminding much of bands like Tiamat (Wildhoney) and the
Sentenced. Perhaps even Amorphis, but this hasn't got so much folk
musical inspiration. There's also parts heavily ressembling to the
first Enigma (MCMXC a.D.). The production is as great as most new
albums from great bands are, which means splendid (I can't belive how
good production it has become on most important releases this last year)
The vocals are much reminding of Peter Steel's (Type-O-Negative) and you
have heard a glimpse of them on Wolfheart, but there's also female backing
vocals on one song. I'm not sure what Moonspell want's with this album,
but it's a very good album which I belive lasts for much more listening
then what Wolfheart did. This grows more and more.
Rated
Sin/Pecado
The spiritual follower to Irreligious. It's slower, doomier and more
melodic. I don't think that it's as good as the previous, but my friends
think so. I didn't like the double CD "Second Skin" much (I might review
it later), it had just remixes and some live songs. The only new track is
featured here aswell so one can live without it. This album is much more
gothic and vampyric then their earlier work, much thanks to the vocals.
It's a slow and nice album to relax to and very different from their
debut.
Rated
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