MOONSPELL's FERNANDO RIBEIRO On 'Far From God': 'This Is A Very Simple, Easy-To-Listen-To Gothic Metal Album'

In a new interview with That Metal Interview, vocalist Fernando Ribeiro of Portuguese dark metal pioneers MOONSPELL spoke about the band's upcoming album, "Far From God", which will be released on July 3 via Napalm Records. Regarding why it took five years for MOONSPELL to release the follow-up to 2021's "Hermitage", Fernando said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, this album, yeah, it's the follow-up to 'Hermitage', so it's been five or six years that we waited. I think we had to wait because I wanted MOONSPELL to be more inspired, more sure of the path we will go down musically, and I think this is a very simple, easy-to-listen[-to] gothic metal album with a lot of rock influences too. It's not very extreme. It's very melodic. It's very musical, and I think it's one of our best creations so far."

He continued: "It was very important because when you do so much music and so much different music, sometimes you place yourself on crossroads that are hard to choose, so we have to double down. So, we already released two singles, 'Far From God' and 'Cross Your Heart'. But I believe they are just singles. They are representative of the album, but I think the main focus will be on the album itself because there's many musical surprises. There's a lot of music going on. There's baritone vocals, there's screaming vocals, there's heavy guitars. So it's a very complete album, as far as the MOONSPELL discography goes with our main influences, but also it's an album that we used MOONSPELL and everything that we have done so far as an influence too. It's very enjoyable. It's not a wall of sound or something like [2008's] 'Night Eternal'."

Regarding the musical direction of "Far From God", Fernando said: "It's very hard to speak about music because I think best things in life are to be experienced. It's not to be debated. So the best thing I can say is to invite you guys, to invite your viewers, to invite your listeners to really tap into that and to find out what makes it special for each one of them. For me, it's the songs. We have the great songs like 'The Great Wolf In The Sky' that's coming out as the single too. It's an epic, beautiful song. Uh, we have 'Our Freedom To Fall', which is almost a cross between a MORBID ANGEL, TYPE O NEGATIVE, PARADISE LOST, MOONSPELL. So as any other MOONSPELL album, it has this importance of being diverse, but also very solid in a way, and we're very, very happy with the result of it."

Asked if the songwriting process for "Far From God" started immediately after the completion of "Hermitage", Fernando said: "Well, the songwriting starts immediately. I mean, it's kind of a cool thing for a band to make an album and then to start thinking about the next — at least for us, because it's always like you have the, the feeling that this mission is done, and you need another one, as far as songwriting comes. Of course, there comes all the tours and all the promotion and all that jazz. But music is always very vital and essential to keep you going. But like I was saying, I didn't feel we were particularly inspired already to make a new album. That's why we had all these EPs and this touring we made in Europe, in the U.S. too, and, of course, the symphonic album. And just one year ago, we really started to go headfirst to compose 'Far From God'. That's when we felt the muse has arrived.

"I know it's a very romantic standpoint when you have a scene that kind of drives your creativity to have two years on the road, then another album, then more two years," he explained. "And I have a lot of friends in music, I think it's killing their creativity and also their joy about being in a band. So with MOONSPELL, as we're very independent, we don't have a manager screaming at us, like, 'Do music, make albums,' we kind of took advantage of that and did everything with time, which is, I believe, a luxury. But that reflects on the final result of the album."

Fernando also talked about MOONSPELL's working relationship with producer Jaime Gomez Arellano, who helmed both "Far From God" and "Hermitage". He said: "I think our story with him was not over, because he became a good friend of ours. He's a great producer. And when you listen to the songs, he had his own vision about the sound. He's originally from Colombia, and he lived in the U.K. for a while. He worked with many bands — GHOST, HEXVESSEL, INSOMNIUM, PARADISE LOST. He does all kinds of stuff. He does a lot of indie metal too. And we like that approach from him. And he was so possessed about the album that sometimes he was even butting heads with us because he had his vision, and I understand that. And he just saw till the end, even sometimes when the band was, like, 'Yeah, but it's our music,' he'd say, 'Yeah, but it's my production.' So it was this kind of production, and I like that. Music is also about conflict, about challenge. If everything goes too right, maybe you lose the human touch, you lose the flair of it. And I think he did an amazing job, because the album sounds very simple. It doesn't have a lot of layers, a lot of old sound. But it's when it gets start getting complicated for the production that everything sounds totally tight and in tune. So we have a hard recording to get everything the way that he wanted to. But I think he was great. He deserves all the trust, and much of the success of 'Far From God' is also thanks to Jaime Gomez Arellano production, I believe."

Where the "Far From God" title track explored tragic vampiric romance and the spiritual decay of modern gothic metal, "Cross Your Heart" turns its gaze toward the endless roads that connect and separate us. Blending the classic atmosphere of the band's legendary Irreligious era with a modern and sharper edge, the song unfolds as a dark, melancholic and emotionally gripping anthem. Driven by brooding melodies, grounded riffing and emotional depth, "Cross Your Heart" pairs Fernando's unmistakable vocals with a reflection on mortality, memory and the fragile nature of life spent in motion.

Fernando commented on the track: "Reminiscent of 'Irreligious' with a modern and dark twist, this gothic metal song tells us about the shrines that we can frequently find on the roads of all countries in the world and that are erected as a painful memory to those who departed in car and bike crashes, often too soon, every time too painfully. Like a band who made miles upon miles and a few crashes themselves, we are privileged observers of the daily and nightly life on the roads, the promised cities, the bitter disappointments, the anguish of a portable life. Before such powers we can only cross our heart and hope to live enough before our time does come."

The first single, "Far From God", sets the tone with burning intensity. A hymn to tragic vampiric love, the song revives the mystique and romantic darkness that once defined the genre, while layered keyboards subtly expand the atmosphere without softening its heaviness. Dense guitars, deep resonant vocals, and dramatic dynamic shifts evoke a timeless gothic aesthetic, restoring danger, and elegance to the narrative of the vampire.

Fernando previously commented on the title track: "I lost my faith and hope in vampires for quite a few years. They became the clowns of Hollywood, the cheap Halloween shop customs, the old and disgraceful Princes From The East. Until the film director Robert Eggers brought us 'Nosferatu' in 2024 and I was immediately attracted back to that tragic, romantic character who Bram Stoker immortalized in his letters. I wrote 'Far From God' in just one breath and it's our first song about vampiric love in ages. I confess I felt the urge of, together with MOONSPELL, saving the face of gothic metal which became hostage of semi-tuned operatic female vocalists, simpleton and crunchy guitar riffs; and of lyrical content that would make Dracula impale himself with a stake in his bloodless heart. This song is the essence of this album, its title, its video, its soul. And you can even feel the fire of daylight burning into yours and your lover's skin."

Thematically, "Far From God" moves through Baudelairian love, existential guilt, and redemption, Christ-like resurrections and the quiet nobility of creatures of the night. Vampires, werewolves, and sacred symbolism are not escapism here, but vehicles for genuine dark emotion: Solemn, romantic, and unfiltered. The album rejects artificial gloss in favor of fantasy grounded in sincerity, rediscovering the heart of gothic metal in its most authentic form.

"To create 'Far From God', we had to wait for the muse," Ribeiro admitted. "Again, she didn't fail us and revealed herself in the most mysterious and beautiful ways to us. It took us five long years of hit and miss, of despairing to the point of thinking we didn't have it anymore, and why should we at all create new music? But I'm glad we persisted. 'Far From God' is a true crusade against the decline of the style in the past few years, a darkly crafted statement that MOONSPELL is here to stay and to claim our throne. No politics, no socials, no intervention, just sickly romantic love, vampires, werewolves so we can all die of beauty, in peace and elegance. Goth bless you."

MOONSPELL's forthcoming magnum opus shines like a black diamond, luminous yet shadowed in texture and color, both musically and sonically. It reconnects with the darker spirit of MOONSPELL's classic era while sounding powerful and contemporary. "Far From God" is not nostalgia; it is a statement. A gothic metal hallelujah. MOONSPELL's 21st century "Irreligious". It's not only a powerful reminder that MOONSPELL remain a defining force in the genre they helped shape, but an album that will truly save gothic metal from boredom and predictability.

"Far From God" track listing:

01. Cross Your Heart
02. Far From God
03. Biblical
04. The Great Wolf In The Sky (feat. Alicia Nuhr/Strings)
05. Your Promise Of Light
06. For The Love Of Mortals
07. Our Freedom To Fall
08. Reconquista

The artwork was painted by Eliran Kantor and can be seen below.

On March 7, Fernando took part in a live question-and-answer session on MOONSPELL's Instagram, in which he said about the musical direction of the band's upcoming follow-up to 2021's "Hermitage": "Let's say the people that have listened to it now so far call it the 'Irreligious' [MOONSPELL's second album, which came out in 1996] of the 21st century. And why? Because we had many places to go, so we are going to a place that is more familiar to us. So, it's a gothic metal album. It's an album that doesn't have the social or quite the philosophical tones of other albums. It's a very simple album. It's very melodic. It's very atmospheric. It's very delicate and it's very emotional for us too. It was recorded in Porto [Portugal] during these past few months with Jaime Gomez Arellano, the one that worked with us on 'Hermitage'. There's going to be a lot of clean vocals, yeah. But it's also MOONSPELL. The fortunate people that have listened to it so far, people that work with us, the producer, close friends, they say it's MOONSPELL. And for us it's the best compliment."

Fernando continued: "It's very, very hard to speak about our own music, and why? Because it's an important part of our life and hopefully an important part of your life too. So the best things in life, I think, you fail to explain. It's just a question of feeling. But what we have tried to do on this album was to try to underline some characteristics of MOONSPELL, which are more bordering the romantic and more bordering the existential vibes of our band and of our music and of our life."

Regarding the songwriting process for "Far From God", Fernando said: "It was a difficult album to write. We had a lot of trial and error. I made, like, 50-something [sets of] lyrics. I had 10 album titles, and that's not very common in MOONSPELL."

Elaborating on the long gap between "Hermitage" and "Far From God", Fernando said: "In a nutshell, after 'Hermitage', you know what happened. There was the pandemic, there was a lot of stuff, picking up life, picking up the pieces, I would say, and finding out the direction. So the direction we did, it's what we do the best, I think. It's the gothic metal."

He added: "It has a bit of everything, I have to say, of the MOONSPELL nature. There are songs that are quite dark and a bit disturbing. There are songs that are very uplifting, but I think, really, it's the 'Irreligious' of the 21st century. It's an album that doesn't have anything else than gothic and metal."

On the topic of the decision to lean more into the "gothic" side of the MOONSPELL sound this time around, Fernando said: "I've been listening to a lot of gothic music, not only the old legends, like FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM or THE SISTERS OF MERCY, LOVE LIKE BLOOD or BAUHAUS, et cetera, but also the FRENCH POLICE, TWIN TRIBES, a lot of Spanish goth too. And I really got into that vibe. So, we decided to go that way. It's always hard to choose. We could make a heavier album. We could make an album in Portuguese. We could make an album industrial-like. So that's the price of the MOONSPELL freedom. I think every fan has [their] moments with our music. Some albums were not very well understood at the beginning and then they were catching up. I think 'Hermitage' still has a lot of catching up to do. So let's see how 'Far From God' gets you. I think it's really a beautiful album."

He continued: "To be honest, after this revival of gothic, with especially those bands, more electro bands, TWIN TRIBES, FRENCH POLICE, et cetera, I felt that the 'gothic metal' term was just easily abused. Because a lot of it doesn't have pain, doesn't have love, doesn't have desperation. It's just the flowers, but not the wither flowers. So it's just the stardust but not the dust. So we decided to bring this melancholy back."

As for the cover artwork of the "Far From God" album, Fernando said: "It's made by Eliran Kantor. It's a beautiful cover artwork. I loved it since the day I saw the sketch. It's not probably the cover you expected from MOONSPELL — I don't know why — but, yeah, I think it's beautiful. And if fits really the album."

MOONSPELL is:

Fernando Ribeiro - Vocals
Ricardo Amorim - Guitars
Pedro Paixão - Keys
Aires Pereira - Bass
Hugo Ribeiro - Drums

Photo credit: Chantik Photography by Sonja Schuringa