With their 30th anniversary approaching, Portugal’s dark metal pioneers have finally revealed details for their upcoming, 13th studio album: Hermitage will be released on 26 February 2021 via Austria’s Napalm Records.
Hermitage will be available in several highly limited and collectable deluxe and diehard editions, mediabook, cassette – all of them including the Candlemass cover ‘Darkness In Paradise’, but also jewelcase, and digital formats. The deluxe box will also include an etched 7″ vinyl with another special bonus track, ‘The Great Leap Forward’, as well as much more exciting additional collectable items!
Tracklist:
- The Greater Good
- Common Prayers
- All or Nothing
- Hermitage
- Entitlement
- Solitarian
- The Hermit Saints
- Apophthegmata
- Without Rule
- City Quitter (Outro)
Bonus Tracks:
- Darkness in Paradise (Candlemass Cover – LP, Box, MC + Mediabook)
- The Great Leap Forward (7″ Vinyl – Deluxe Box)
While the world is struggling in the dark, Moonspell‘s forthcoming album was recorded, mixed and mastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Primordial, Ghost, Sólstafir & many more) at the Orgone Studios in the UK.
Vocalist Fernando Ribeiro has this to say about Hermitage: “We know that we are entering the final years of our career as musicians: the winter of our lifetime. We don‘t care about people say, we‘re still young at heart. But we do care about how those around us feel about us, and this album is all about how we feel, our answers to your questions.
“Under these circumstances, we feel our musical stakes are higher than ever. For us, it‘s not about likes or algorithms, reach, or opportunity of growth. We only care about the music. Music does come first on this album you will hold in your hands soon enough.
“The record is about turning our backs to the conventions of modernity. We are currently convincing ourselves that it‘s all about us, that we (humanity) are everything. That the world revolves around us. However, ipso facto, we are nothing and nothing revolves around us. Moonspell‘s goal, on these last turns around the Sun, are to write the best music we possibly can. To tell you a few stories with our lyrics, to be close to you in these times of distancing. We wish not to tease you or to influence you or to sell you our fish. We want to sit down with you at your table and feast together upon our notes and words. Like if we were close friends, like back in the time where music matters the most. In your bedroom listening to music, without having to post our smart remarks about it, inviting the hate in.
“‘Hermitage’ is an open-hearted invitation to simplicity. To be humble. To be thankful. To serve you solace. Provide you comfort, entertainment. We sincerely hope this call reaches you. That you kindly accept what we offer. That you take our music with you to the place you must feel as yours. To your secret place, to your hermitage. Blessed be.“
