Moonspell – Far from God

Where do you go after making your most Pink Floyd-inspired album to date?

With Moonspell, that’s never an easy question to answer. The only predictable thing about the Portuguese gothic metal pioneers has always been their unpredictability.

Ever since Irreligious in 1996, the band have consistently defied expectations, embracing electronics on Sin/Pecado and The Butterfly Effect, unleashing crushing heaviness on Night Eternal, dialing up the commercial appeal on the excellent Extinct, only to follow their biggest commercial success with 1755 – their first concept album, performed entirely in Portuguese. Most recently, Hermitage explored surprisingly introspective, Pink Floyd-inspired territory.

So where do Moonspell set their sails on Far from God?

At first glance, the answer seems straightforward. The album steers back towards the band’s more accessible side, drawing heavily from the likes of Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division and Pink Floyd. In many ways, it lands somewhere between the immediate appeal of Extinct and the layered sophistication of Hermitage.

The opening singles do little to dispel that impression. In fact, they initially suggest that Far from God leans a little too heavily on its Sisters of Mercy influences. Fortunately, that first impression proves misleading.

Far from God is a deceptive album. Its direct hooks and accessible songwriting create the illusion of a relatively straightforward listen, but repeated spins gradually reveal a record far richer than it first appears. The real strength of the album lies in everything happening around the melodies and the gist of songwriting. It’s an album where the arrangements, textures and atmosphere gradually become just as memorable as the hooks themselves.

That becomes particularly evident in the arrangements. Keyboards take on a central role throughout the record, while Ricardo Amorim’s guitars largely abandon brute force in favour of texture and atmosphere. Even when heavier riffs emerge, they rarely dominate the mix. Instead, they blend seamlessly into the album’s dense sonic landscape, rewarding listeners who take the time to explore its many layers.

The album’s structure reflects that same patience. Rather than relying on dramatic shifts in pace or intensity, its eight songs gradually tighten like a spiral, each one subtly raising the emotional stakes. By the time Far from God reaches “Our Freedom to Fall” and the excellent closer “Reconquista,” the slow build finally pays off with the album’s strongest material.

That gradual development also exposes the record’s biggest weakness. While the songwriting is consistently good, it rarely reaches the exceptional level Moonspell have achieved on most previous releases. Many of the songs begin with intriguing ideas and atmospheric promise, only to resolve in surprisingly familiar ways. For a band whose greatest strength has always been its willingness to defy expectations, Far from God occasionally plays things a little too safe.

The irony, then, is that Moonspell remain as unpredictable as ever when choosing where to take their music. The surprise this time is that, once the journey begins, Far from God often arrives at destinations more familiar than expected. Fortunately, the destination isn’t what makes the album rewarding. Its real strengths lie in the layered arrangements, the patient build-up of atmosphere and the countless details waiting to be discovered long after the first listen.

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