Moonspell to celebrate 35th Anniversary with Amorphis, Zeal & Ardor and more at MEO Arena in 2027
Portuguese metal band Moonspell will celebrate their 35th anniversary with a major concert at MEO Arena in Lisbon on October 30 2027. The event will bring together an international line-up featuring Finnish metal band Amorphis, Swiss-American project Zeal & Ardor, Towards The Sinister and Portuguese gothic metal pioneers Heavenwood.
The concert will mark 35 years of Moonspell’s career, during which the band have established themselves as one of Portugal’s most internationally recognised metal acts. Their music, combining gothic metal with elements of black metal and dark atmospheres, has helped shape the country’s presence in the international heavy music scene.
Joining Moonspell, Amorphis bring a catalogue that blends melodic death metal with progressive and folk influences. The Finnish band have developed a distinctive sound throughout their career, drawing on mythology and Finnish cultural heritage alongside heavier musical foundations.
Zeal & Ardor will add their combination of black metal, blues and spiritual influences to the programme. The project, led by Manuel Gagneux, is known for bringing together musical traditions that are rarely combined within a single metal framework.
The line-up also includes Towards The Sinister that brings together four musicians closely associated with the classic era of British death-doom band My Dying Bride: vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe, founding guitarist Calvin Robertshaw, original drummer Rick Miah and original bassist Adrian Jackson. The project revisits material from the band’s formative years, focusing on early releases including As the Flower Withers, Turn Loose the Swans, The Angel and the Dark River and Like Gods of the Sun. These records helped establish My Dying Bride’s distinctive approach to death-doom, combining heavy, slow-paced riffs with atmospheric arrangements, melancholic melodies and expressive vocals. Towards The Sinister offers an opportunity to hear this material performed by musicians who were directly involved in shaping that period of the band’s history.
Heavenwood will also bring their more than three-decade history to the MEO Arena concert. Formed in Vila Nova de Gaia in 1992 by guitarist and composer Ricardo Dias dos Santos, the band became one of the pioneering names in Portuguese gothic and dark metal. Their debut album, Diva (1996), gained international attention and became the first album by a Portuguese metal band to receive an official release in Japan. Subsequent records, including Swallow (1998), Redemption (2008) and Abyss Masterpiece (2011), further established their blend of gothic atmosphere, melodic passages and dark metal arrangements.
The band’s latest album, The Tarot of the Bohemians – Part II, was released on 12 June 2026 through Mighty Music, marking the conclusion of a conceptual work that began with its first instalment in 2016. Inspired by the esoteric writings of Gérard Encausse, known as Papus, the record explores the symbolism of the Tarot’s Major Arcana across ten tracks, including “Death”, “Temperance”, “The Devil”, “The Moon” and “The World”. Recorded at Lucky Cat Studio in Portugal and mixed and mastered at Vamacara Studios in France by Niko HK Krauss, the album retains Heavenwood’s characteristic melancholy while incorporating a more cinematic and contemporary production. Its completion also follows a difficult period for the band, including a near-fatal accident in 2022 and subsequent changes to the project. The album represents both the continuation of Heavenwood’s longstanding artistic identity and a new chapter led by Dias dos Santos.
Scheduled for October 30 2027 at MEO Arena, the event will bring together bands from different generations and musical backgrounds for a concert centred on Moonspell’s 35-year milestone.
Further event details, including ticket information, should be consulted through the official event announcement.
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