Moonspell are a band from Portugal that has had plenty of music reviewed in this zine over this years and on this release they compiled their 1994 ep "Under The Moonspell" and demo's "Under Satanae" and Anno Satanae" which showed more of darker , occult and black metal style than previous releases as well as having some gothic metal elements and this is a review of their 2024 compilation "Under The Moonspell (The Earlier Years)" which will b e released on April 20th by Alma Mater Records.
Synths and clear folk music style clear singing mixed in with some ethnic chants start off the compilation before going into more of a heavier and melodic direction. Elements of doom metal are also added into the slower sections of the songs and the vocals are mostly grim sounding black metal screams.
Ritualistic spoken word parts can also be heard in certain sections of the compilation while the keyboards also enhance the occult nature of the songs. When the music speeds up a decent amount of blast beats can also be heard while the solos and leads are also done in a very melodic style, acoustic guitars and folk instruments are also added on some of the tracks.
Some of the tracks also add in a good mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts along with all of the musical instruments also having a very powerful sound to them. Some of the songs are also very long and epic in length, clean playing and whispers can also be heard at times and the earlier recordings also avoid the use of gothic elements which are more present on newer releases.
Some of the tracks also add in touches of middle eastern style folk music which also gives the compilation more of an exotic touch. Percussion's are also utilized more on the later demo and ep enhancing the shamanistic and tribal nature of the music as well as some of the keyboards getting more symphonic and gothic metal style vocals also being added as the compilations,
Female vocals can also be heard on a few songs as well a s some of the vocals also adding in more of an aggressive shouting style and death metal growls can also be heard briefly. The production sounds very old school while the lyrics cover Satanism, Occultism, Left hand Path, Thelema and Esoteric themes.
In my opinion this is a very great sounding collection from Moonspell and if you are a fan of this band, you should check out this compilation. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Ancient Winter Goddess" "The Fever" "Serpent Angel" and "Tenebrarum Pratorium". 8/7 out of 10.
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