50 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2017
40. Moonspell – 1755
I’ve listened to so much Moonspell in 2017 that I basically feel fluent in Portuguese at this point.
The Lisbon quintet wowed fans and newcomers alike this year with their symphonic and grandiose opus 1755. With its entire concept centring around the devastating Portuguese earthquake of that very year, 1755 is an album as bombastically destructive as its premise implies.
Rolling gothic, orchestral and melodic sentimentalities into one punchy package, choirs and giant choruses are plentiful on Moonspell’s eleventh full-length, balanced out by doom metal-inspired riffing, ear-bashing percussion and the crunching vocal delivery of Fernando Ribeiro.
The delicious excessiveness of such cuts as the OTT “Todos Os Santos” (yes, every song on this thing is entirely in Portuguese) is truly the main attraction of 1755, its choir-aided refrain truly god-like. The building opening of “Evento” is similarly epic, leading to a folkish, yet still immense, breakdown.
While undeniably a great, great album, 1755 still pales in comparison, however, to the symphonic metal masterpieces waiting for us in the rest of this list, coming courtesy of such titans as Ne Obliviscaris and Septicflesh.