Moonspell - _Sin/Pecado_
(Century Media, 1998)
by: Pedro Azevedo (6 out of 10)
"Sell me out, sell me out... Everyone has a price, everything has a price." This is a quote from "V.C. (Gloria Domini)", track 7 of _Sin_, a song about society ("V.C." meaning "Vulture Culture") and "buying" people. Whether these same lyrics can be applied to Moonspell and their new album itself may be an interesting question for those who choose to waste their time with it; whether Moonspell were aware of that when they wrote it is perhaps the real question here. But the fact is that Century Media really hit the jackpot when they signed Moonspell a few years ago. Back then, they signed a very interesting average-selling metal band, and now they have a rather uninteresting, yet highly profitable, pseudo-metal/goth band. Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh here, because "Handmade God", "Abysmo" and "Let the Children Cum to Me" (yes, I did spell that right) are all acceptable tracks (even the very mellow "The Hanged Man" is reasonable too -- for a very mellow song, that is). However, "Eurotica" made me laugh like I did when I listened to the ridiculous Fear Factory remixes in _Remanufacture_, and the problem is that besides the three exceptions I mentioned above, the album is either average or sometimes even mediocre -- most of it is simply bland, lacks strength and fails to capture attention. Yet, like I just noted, there are a few tracks which avoid a rating that could otherwise have been lower, but _Sin_ never rises above what can be labeled as 'acceptable'. I can say that I 'saw' this album shortly after listening to _Irreligious_, as I'm quite sure many others did; so this isn't even a disappointing outcome, because I more than expected it to be this way. Let's say that Moonspell started by using ingredient X in _Wolfheart_ then kept 50% of X and added 50% of a new Y ingredient in _Irreligious_; now only traces of X are left, while Y rises to nearly 100%. By the way, if you liked the sort of rhythms and sampled sounds found in "Subversion" from _Irreligious_, then there's plenty of that in _Sin_ for you to enjoy -- I definitely do not. As a matter of fact, strengthening the idea stated above, samples abound throughout the recording and play a very important role in _Sin_. Now I would just like to quote Moonspell from an interview I heard, in which their vocalist stated that the listener must be "intelligent enough" to understand the album and the changes in their sound. Fortunately, I couldn't possibly care less about their opinion on anyone's intelligence (much less my own). Anyway, one might even say that _Sin_ is an attempt at avoiding stagnancy; then again, that by itself was never enough to make an album better nor to justify the direction that has been chosen. As _Sin_ ends, one can hear a sample of someone saying "We were happy to have you with us tonight and hope you will come back often." As far as I'm concerned, you can keep on hoping.
(article published 10/3/1998)
Facebook
Twitter ::
:
::
HTML :
CSS ::
All contents copyright 1995-2024 their individual creators. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
All opinions expressed in Chronicles of Chaos are opinions held at the time of writing by the individuals expressing them.
They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else, past or present.