Reviews for Daemonarch - Hermeticum:
Moonspell return to their roots and take their early raw "Under The Moonspell" -era sound and combine their later found huge talent to it, adding an incredible amount of rage & pure hatred, express Fernando Ribeiro's old satanic lyrics/texts and release the whole disfigured opus under the name "Daemonarch". Actually, I can't be sure about the line-up, since the digipak states "Violent revelations from Langsuyar's [his old alias] past! Features Moonspell members.". The guitar work is reminiscent of Ricardo (especially the wonderful solos) but I honestly don't know who has done the bass work. Just guessing here. Oh, and the drums are programmed, which is a shame. Despite them being the best programmed drums I've ever heard, they are still clinical and easily recognizable as "fake".
In any case, Daemonarch differs dramatically from everything Moonspell has done since their debut EP, being a violent mixture of death and black metal. Langsuyar hardly uses his trademark clean voice at all, but his varied screams, shouts and rasps show that his talents are also very remarkable on this area. The vocals are also often layered, with a death metal rasping backing up a black metal scream -- a very effective decision. The most notable and admirable thing in Fernando's magnificent vocal work on the album is the incredible amount of rage he has poured into the music. Whether or not the violent & (probably) personal old lyrics have anything do with it, the fact remains that he sounds undisputedly more furious and pissed-off than any vocalist ever before (that I know of, naturally). On the flipside, the (remarkably good) lyrics have not been printed to the digipak, and because of his violent voice it can be very difficult to grasp what he's saying. The effort of trying to transcribe them, on the other hand (again), is very rewarding.
The lyrics are mostly satanic and violent ("Rising above this searching of love visions / I felt this darkness resonance / nailing a thousand Nazarenes / screaming true your thousand faces" -Lex Talionis), but prose and very well done, showing off Fernando's talent on this section as well. A story has it that he burnt all of the lyrics after the recording sessions, but lately he has almost promised to release the lyrics for the masses (the fans keep demanding them all the time). I hope he does.
Musically, the guitar work is without a doubt the main driving force here, when the keyboards are mostly just colouring the background with symphonic (and quite simple) string-themes. And although the drumming is very often blasting, a straight resemblance from the black metal scene, the guitar work is mostly riff based -- although tremolo-picking and buzz-sawing is occasionally heard -- and there are a lot of very complex and mesmerizing solos, something black metal hardly ever has, the guitar work could be described as technical death metal riffing. Needless to say, Ricardo is a very talented musician and he handles the complex patterns with ease, although there are also simpler guitar themes. The riffing is superbly heavy and pounding, aggressive right up to the level of the vocals. To cut it short: there's no flaw big enough to be mentioned here on the guitar section. Everything is handled with finesse..
For a long-time Moonspell fan such as myself it was exciting to see if I could see any direct links to Moonspell's discography; any leftovers from any album, that sort of things, and a few tracks caught my attention: First of all, The Seventh Daemonarch. A majestic track, and in my opinion the best thing on the album, is like a bastard son of Alma Mater. Violent, emotional and epic. "Of A Thousand Young", the most violent and black metal-ish track is very much similar to Under The Moonspell's tracks. Finally, the moody, almost eerie album closer (and the only track that greatly differs from the overall line of the album) "Hymn To Lucifer" just has to be a Irreligious leftover. It has the same sort of guitar lines, mood and even a similar sample is used (= a muddy speech sample, lots of this type of samples were used on Irreligious).
Otherwise, the tracks are very unique and not that easily comparable to the releases of Moonspell. Mostly the horrid rage and violent drive of the music separates it from the mother band's works. The most rewarding thing about the album is that although the tracks are all in a similar vein, they never get repetitive nor dull. A very solid nine tracks, with only above average tracks -- there's not a single bad track found on the album.
A highly recommended death/black metal release absolutely worth tracking down (it can be hard to get a hold of). Made me appreciate Moonspell much more as musicians, and also made Fernando appear even more godlike. Especially Moonspell fans should check it out.
-Jouni Luoma
<10/06/2001>
Review by: Jonesy
I hate moonspell.......
I *LOVE* this though! a great album at least, every single song on here was simply fantastic (my personal favourite being lex talionis). A nice cross between black and death metal.. Every song sounds different, yet the same. I mean, if you like one, you should like them all, yet you won't get bored of them all by listening to half over and over.
I wish there were more albums made though. *sniff*.. and NOT MOONSPELL!.. argh.
Review by: ghaleon
Let's just say you don't need a 10,000 word fucking essay to say Daemonarch are fucking sick!
P.S. Moonspell are Shit!
Review by: Duplo_mccarthy
a gr8 band i love that band ..why did they release one album
plz make new album ...best wishes for that band
Review by: akhenaton_judasiscariot
This ones really suck. They can be worst than Moonspell... And Fernando Ribeiro shows how gay he his in this album!!!
Review by: Dark Thunder
Daemonarch are even better than moonspell, i really got into this album, of special note is the Bathory cover (RIP Quorthon).
Review by: blakk_mayhem
This is the absolutely fucking best Moonspell-Album that I've ever heard. (Yes, I know... it's Daemonarch not Moonspell...)
In fact this album is in the old "Under the Moonspell"-Tradition, but much better! (Better production, more and better and heavier songs etc.)
To the Moonspell-Guys, if you ever read this (I'm sure you will :-) ):
please record another album like the "Hermetic"-Album of your "Daemonarch"-Project and stop torturing your fans with such "Second Skin" oder "Sin/Pecado"-Crap!
Review by: warhellhammer
MY GOD how on earth did these guys manage to release such an album? It is more than amazing, I dare say it is Moonspell's ONLY black metal album, actually it is black-death. I have just listened it now for the first time and, as a die-hard mmonspell fan, i must say it is one of their best albums, definetly in their top three. It is fu**ing incredible, it simply has nothing to do with any of their other previous releases, maybe, it slightly resembles Irreligious but ONLY when it comes to guitar riffs, but as I've said, just slightly. These guys are EVIL and that is prety fine by me!!! :)
Review by: Lucinski
Suberb album, words of divine praise for such an exquisite realese. As I consider Daemonarch as one with Moonspell, I believe that Hermeticum is actually the band's second greatest album after Wolfheart, of course.
Review by: Lucinski