MOONSPELL to release live album, “Opus Diabolicum”

October 26, 2024 saw Moonspell performing their first-ever symphonic show, dubbed “Opus Diabolicum”, at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital city. The band made history at this unforgettable live event, adding another magnificent chapter to both metal music made in Portugal and their very own legacy. Now, a year later, this monumental event can be yours to view anytime, available in DVD/Blu-ray, 2 CD, Black and Colored Vinyl and Digital formats via Napalm Records on October 31, 2025.

On “Opus Diabolicum”, the band revisits their classics and their bombastic album “1755” at a one-off, exclusive show and their biggest production to date. The heavy metallic power of the dark metal pioneers meets the classical magnitude of the 45-piece Lisbon Sinfonietta Orchestra – one of Portugal’s finest orchestras – conducted by maestro Vasco Pearce de Azevedo!

A new video clip for the Moonspell anthem, “Vampiria”, is premiering today below. Captured live at the “Opus Diabolicum” show, it’s a haunting tribute to the gothic roots of MOONSPELL, that now rises once more in full symphonic glory, unleashing dramatic orchestration and vampiric grandeur like never before!

Frontman Fernando Ribeiro comments: “’Vampiria’ is a Moonspell classic, as old as time itself. It was a first choice for us because it’s actually one of the most remarkable arrangements of the whole show, which granted new blood and life (aren’t they the same?) to a timeless, eternal song. See it risen from the dead with your own eyes, after ‘travelling oceans of time’.”

“I have never been the one to push Moonspell into an orchestral direction”, Ribeiro admits. “I mean, like any fan, I can recognise the impact Classical had over Heavy Metal (Quorthon, from Bathory, used to quote Wagner as his favourite “band”) and in my musical collection Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Ravel, could be found, shoulder to shoulder with the aforementioned Bathory, Celtic Frost, Sarcófago or Maiden. But, I wasn’t a fan of the metal meets orchestra efforts myself and when I approached Jaime (Gomez Arellano) to mix this beast, I asked him: have you heard S&M and other “live with an orchestra” metal bands albums? We want nothing like that!
This is work of passion: truly the work of the devil (opus diabolicum): imperfect, unprocessed, untamed. A release made by friends to all the friends we have around this goth forsaken world and that in an arena in Lisbon or in a sweaty club in Texas, keep the spell going, until we are no more.”

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