Moonspell has released the official music video for “Cross Your Heart,” the opening track from the Portuguese dark metal band’s forthcoming studio album, Far From God. The release follows the positive reception of the album’s title track and single, and came in the wake of Moonspell‘s acclaimed live appearance at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival. Far From God is due July 3 via Napalm Records.
Where the title track explored tragic vampiric romance, “Cross Your Heart” turns its gaze toward the roads that connect and separate us. Blending the classic atmosphere of the band’s legendary Irreligious era with a modern and sharper edge, the song unfolds as a dark, melancholic anthem. Driven by brooding melodies, grounded riffing and emotional depth, the track pairs Moonspell frontman Fernando Ribeiro‘s unmistakable vocals with a reflection on mortality, memory and life spent in motion.
Ribeiro commented: “Reminiscent of Irreligious with a modern and dark twist, this gothic metal song tells us about the shrines that we can frequently find on the roads of all countries in the world and that are erected as a painful memory to those who departed in car and bike crashes, often too soon, every time too painfully. Like a band who made miles upon miles and a few crashes themselves, we are privileged observers of the daily and nightly life on the roads, the promised cities, the bitter disappointments, the anguish of a portable life. Before such powers we can only cross our heart and hope to live enough before our time does come.”
Born from five years of creative searching, doubt and ultimate rediscovery, Far From God marks a powerful return for the band: darker, sharper and emotionally unfiltered. Rather than bending to modern trends, Moonspell doubles down on identity and substance, presenting a bold statement of gothic metal in its purest form — dark, romantic, dramatic and unapologetically heavy.
The title track “Far From God” sets the tone with burning intensity. A hymn to tragic vampiric love, the song revives the mystique and romantic darkness that once defined the genre, with dense guitars, deep resonant vocals and dramatic dynamic shifts evoking a timeless gothic aesthetic.
Ribeiro previously commented on the title track: “I lost my faith and hope in vampires for quite a few years. They became the clowns of Hollywood, the cheap Halloween shop customs, the old and disgraceful Princes from the East. Until the film director Robert Eggers brought us Nosferatu in 2024 and I was immediately attracted back to that tragic, romantic character who Bram Stoker immortalized in his letters. I wrote ‘Far From God’ in just one breath and it’s our first song about vampiric love in ages. I confess I felt the urge of, together with Moonspell, saving the face of gothic metal which became hostage of semi-tuned operatic female vocalists, simpleton and crunchy guitar riffs; and of lyrical content that would make Dracula impale himself with a stake in his bloodless heart. This song is the essence of this album, its title, its video, its soul. And you can even feel the fire of daylight burning into yours and your lover’s skin.”
Thematically, Far From God moves through Baudelairian love, existential guilt and redemption, with vampires, werewolves and sacred symbolism serving as vehicles for genuine dark emotion: solemn, romantic and unfiltered. The album rejects artificial gloss in favor of fantasy grounded in sincerity.
Ribeiro said of creating the record: “To create Far From God, we had to wait for the muse. Again, she didn’t fail us and revealed herself in the most mysterious and beautiful ways to us. It took us five long years of hit and miss, of despairing to the point of thinking we didn’t have it anymore, and why should we at all create new music? But I’m glad we persisted. Far From God is a true crusade against the decline of the style in the past few years, a darkly crafted statement that Moonspell is here to stay and to claim our throne. No politics, no socials, no intervention, just sickly romantic love, vampires, werewolves so we can all die of beauty, in peace and elegance. Goth bless you.”
Far From God was produced with Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Sólstafir, Ghost), who previously worked with Moonspell on 2021’s Hermitage. The album’s artwork was painted by Eliran Kantor.
