MOONSPELL - In Sickness And Health...
By Martin Popoff

Portugal's main rock export Moonspell have, through a series of daunting, unpredictable records, gathered a fanbase that has found themselves enriched by Fernando Ribeiro's literary approach to all things doom. The Antidote can be heard in all its dynamic glory as the band cruises around North America as support for Cradle Of Filth and Type O Negative, a wily billing, given that Fernando and Co. have operated deftly in both the black metal and the gothic realms.

"The Antidote is an album that was shaping up inside us for a long time," begins the band's spiritual and material leader. "The main cornerstones that we wanted to put on this record, as the end and the beginning of all energies, is that we wanted to make it a more spiritual and more powerful album with a very strong balance and a strong personal accent. So I think The Antidote, because of that, is probably one of the most 'intentional' albums we've done. We really wanted to achieve something, and we went there without as many stops as we had with Darkness And Hope or The Butterfly Effect; it was more fluid this time."

It's a long story, but The Antidote has much to do with poison and its reversal, with little clear bottles, with fear, heck, even in some ways, with vodka and its effects, something which Fernando saw first hand on the band's tour through Russia. But all in all, with respect to his Russian experience, it was the musical experience which came home to roost most forcefully for Fernando.

"For us, it's very difficult to imagine that a band from Portugal could even go to France, let alone Russia. When you go to these faraway places, it's always enjoyable. And normally, when we weren't playing, every couple of days we'd go buy books, see museums, see the architecture. Obviously, Moscow has a lot to see. About the shows themselves, nowadays we have our records officially distributed in Russian Federation countries."

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