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Moonspell > Under the Moonspell > Reviews
Moonspell - Under the Moonspell

This one's for the pervs. - 97%

PseudoGoatKill, April 25th, 2005

You know just to be differant I should give the album a low score, but that wouldn't be practical. Once again I'm reviewing a Moonspell album and giving it a highscore. Gee what a shocker...*cough*. So a few weeks ago I found this nice little gem of music for $1.00, nice deal if you ask me.

Although "Under the Moonspell" is not Moonspells first album it might easily be the earliest album available to the non-kvlt kids. Here we have a nice piece of Folk Metal. That's right I didn't use the term folk/black metal, because suffice to say there is none if even nairy a trace of black metal on this album.

Well no wait the lyrics are very pagan black metalish with the ideals of pagan gods, destroying the Christian God, and one of Moonspell's favorate topics...sex. Yep this could be in fact Moonspell's either most romantic or perviest album depending on your point of view.

The album opens up with what sounds like the mournful chant of some guy as a mideastern type tune plays in the background. Soon the drumming becomes faster but still maintains it's mideastern influence. This is a good intro by Moonspell, and they must have loved it too alot. If you listen to the intro song on "Sin/Pecado" you can in fact here this intro laced in with that intro.

The intro leads to the second song which is a quick paced folk metal song. Again I won't call it black metal because the music is too slow, there are no blast beats, and the guitar work is not based entirely around either speed metal or thrash metal which is normally what black metal uses for most of its riffs. The song opens up with a nice little shout and blast of music and the sound of demented laughter. The guitar riffs on this song and the other songs given are intricut little gems that make use of the scales in a plethora of differant effects. There are a few instances of simple thrash riffing but it usually never lasts too long. The bass follows within the same value as the guitar, meanings it's just as good as it. The drumming never goes off into the wanking world of blasterbation, and instead the drummer has made quite some interesting drumming patterns suitable for the likes of folk metal. The vocals are also more harsh than on other records although not as raspy as most black metal vocalists.

Now what makes each of the songs unique is the other instruments used. On the fourth song which is a tad bit slower you can hear the distinct use of a violin. For all of you pervs out there you can also here a woman having an orgasm, so that should make alot of you happy. Don't worry it's not some scream fest like in a certain CoF song.

Jumping back to the third song it's "almost" the same as the second song guitar, bass, and drumming wise. To make things a bit differant they did change up the riffs quite abit though. This song is also a bit slower than the second song although not as slow as the fourth song. There is also a nigh bit of chanting going on here as the vocalist sings mostly about sex, pagan sex, words of pagan sexual nature that normally translate to tits, cunt, dick, and boobies, and the idea of lust.

Nope not making that up at all. Download or buy this album right away. of course it isn't as good as Wolfheart by 3 points but still it's worth adding to your collection

97/100

Under the Moonspell - 83%

Silmaril, May 25th, 2003

This EP starts in a rather strange way for a metal album. Track #1 consists of arabic sounds accompanied by the Muezzin calls that are heard on mosques, to serve as a mystic intro to this EP.
Track #2 is my personal favourite of this cd, it combines a mystic oriental feeling with melodic symphonic black metal, the guitar melodies are eastern-tinged and even a gong is there!
The vocals aren't exactly black metal, but they're slightly harsh, and alternate with rather clean vocals and a few female words here and there.
The arabic influence is all over this track, with the keyboard and the guitar giving a sniff of Middle East. Finally, the last one and a half minute of this track is entirely based on a Portuguese acoustic guitar.
Track #3, with harsher vocals than the first, is at first slightly different, the lyrics being more satanist than on the first track, and the female voice gives a sort of horror-feeling to it. The final moments are again influenced by Mediterranean sounds.
As for track #4, this is slightly different than the previous ones, the sound is less heavy and the vocals are clean. The lyrics consist of two pieces, the first is a short poem written by the vocalist, the second is an extract of Marquis de Sade, followed by female orgasmic moans and a violin background.
Finally, track #5 is an instrumental track intirely on a Portuguese acoustic guitar and with sea waves in the background.
Overall, this cd is indeed interesting, and somehow hard to categorize, it's similar to black metal, but I guess it can't be considered as pure black metal, and it's different than the actual albums released by Moonspell. Feel free to give your own category!