Latest news

[06.07.2009]
Martyr Lucifer store officially opens today

[05.07.2009]
Gallery section updated

[23.06.2009]
A new unreleased version of a Space Mirrors song has been added in the Music section

[19.05.2009]
Some reviews for "Soul Mechanics"

[14.05.2009]
Martyr Lucifer leaves Opposite Sides

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Biographies

MARTYR LUCIFER

Artistically born around early 90's, following the venture in the band DOGMA, who played death-thrash metal at early stages. Due to musical differences the band splits generating at least three different musical paths. Martyr, who was the most extreme of the band, joined HORTUS ANIMAE at their very commencement. At the beginning their genre was oriented towards a gothic-doom-death metal approach, but the desire of Martyr Lucifer was to experiment and explore more progressive and black metal styles. His influences, for what concerns extreme vocals, come mainly from artists like Mikael Akerfeldt, Aaron Stainthorpe, Dani Filth and Satyr Wongraven among others, instead about clean vocals he's inspired by the 80's darkwave movement. Through the years Martyr's musical taste enlarged to new horizons and his song-writing became more and more present and various in the band but, anyway, Martyr felt the need to explore different solutions and, in 2004, joined the band OPPOSITE SIDES as vocalist. In the meantime Martyr started to plan the realization of a solo-album, in order to express his darker and deeper, more intimate we can say, emotions. In early 2006 he decided to quit playing bass to concentrate mostly on vocal duties for HORTUS ANIMAE. But shortly after, the members of the band decided to stay on-hold for some time but anyway Martyr Lucifer kept his musical activities alive recording vocals for the new OPPOSITE SIDES and SPACE MIRRORS albums, both to see the light of day in early 2009.

Influences: see (or better listen to) the 2nd PLAYLIST in the MUSIC section.

Books: "The Devil And Miss Prym" (Paulo Coelho), "The Da Vinci Code" (Dan Brown), "The Stand" (Stephen King), "Anastasia" (Vladimir Megrè), "The Master And Margarita" (Mikail Bulgakov), "The Pillars Of The Earth" (Ken Follett).

Movies: Phantom Of The Paradise, Young Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula, A Clockwork Orange, Batman, The Corpse Bride, Sweenie Todd, The Bear, La Belle Verte.

Food: Vegetarian - Italian, Ukrainian, Greek, Chinese.

HORTUS ANIMAE

HORTUS ANIMAE, the garden of the soul, was formed in 1997 by Martyr Lucifer (lead and backing vocals / bass), Thomas (drums), Shred Blast Hypnos (guitars) and Bless (keyboards), as the original line-up, uniting with the aim of creating something that brought forward their passion for extreme metal, but contemporarily moulding it with their other musical inspirations and passions. The result started to take form almost immediately. Hortus Animae's sound can be often described as a melting pot, proposing a true and instinctive blend of black metal, 70s prog rock, gothic and finally arriving at new forms of extreme and modern art. Not much passed before the band recorded their first demo-tape "An Abode for Spirit and Flesh", which was very well reviewed by all major specialised magazines and smaller fanzines, and emphasised immediately not only a musical knowledge and culture unknown to many others, but also a true taste in lyrical and conceptual characteristics. After exactly 2 years, the line-up went through several changes as Hortus Animae searched for the exactly right musicians. Proceeding in their artistic flare, they proceeded to compose and record their first self-produced full length album, namely "The Melting Idols" which circled a new essence of the band who now pushed down the accelerator and added more aggressiveness to their music, however maintaining their greatly melodical and progressive breaks. This emphasised the artistic contrast of their music even more, and gave birth to a genre very few known bands perform. Shortly after, as second guitarist, Iarsa joined the band having played in numerous gothic and extreme metal acts and after a few supporting gigs to bands the like of Napalm Death, Konkhra, Lacuna Coil and Ancient, the band started to feel the urge to push their career forward and began writing and orchestrating the material for their biggest opus, "Waltzing Mephisto", the ultimate blend of all their artistic and musical branches. It was as if Hortus Animae united all of their efforts and past experiences both musical, artistic and professional, and gave birth to their ultimate offspring. Iarsa left for personal reasons and the band continued the research for the right musicians to complete an official line-up. Moreover drummer Thomas left Hortus Animae, due to musical divergences and, for this particular recording, the band had the chance of the availability of Diego GroM Meraviglia, drummer of the notorious Metal Blade Recs. act Ancient and the DragonHeart Recs. act DoomSword, working as a respected studio session musician and adding a great further growing point to the band's sound and impact. After a while GroM decided that he was interested in joining the band as an official full time member and the line-up was therefore completed. Hortus Animae released their promo album "Waltzing Mephisto" and sent it to various record labels, receiving great comments and a lot of interest from many companies. A numerous amount of offers came in and finally the band chose to sign for Black Lotus Records in October 2002, preferring their offer above many others. The Waltzing Mephisto album was released in April 2003 and it received great responses from both press and fans worldwide, including Japan and South America. After this release a new member, Amon 418 (from the cult death metal band Baratro), joined Hortus Animae and the band started to work on a Dead Can Dance cover version entitled "Windfall introducing Summoning Of The Muse" in cooperation with Liv Kristine Espenæs Krull, ex Theatre Of Tragedy and current Atrocity / Leaves' Eyes singer. This cover version is featured in a tribute album (released by Black Lotus Records) that also includes artists like Nightfall, Ulver, Antimatter, Monumentum, Trail Of Tears, Ataraxia, The Gathering and Anathema. The year 2004 sees the band involved in different side-projects, like the death metal band Opposite Sides featuring Martyr Lucifer, S.B. Hypnos and Amon and the black metal band Hate Profile, Amon 418s one-man-band (with the collaboration of GroM on drums) and the great release of Ancient's new album "Night Visit". Hortus Animae also started to write, arrange and record the material for their second official release. "The Blow of Furious Winds", Hortus Animaes well awaited sequel to their debut release, shows a progression and evolvement that emphasizes the bands desire and character to explore further beyond the border line of musical clichés. Not only has Hortus Animae evolved technically, but they have further highlighted their compositional and experimental capabilities, releasing an album that encompasses not only all forms of Metal genres and sub-genres, but dwells into the depths of music in general as a universal concept, incorporating styles, influences and sounds that are common to artists producing genres of music well outside the metal boundaries. Indeed living up to their name, the garden of the soul. "The Blow of Furious Winds" will sound like an encyclopaedia of music itself, without any presumption, clearly as an evidence of Hortus Animae's artistic and technical potential and leaving the listener with an anxious sense of whats to come and what is still to be seen, from a band that since its debut, has not failed to positively surprise and entertain. Between 2005 and 2008 side-projects and collaborations have been developed: Hate Profile, Opposite Sides, Space Mirrors. With the coming of the year 2008 the band celebrates 10 years since the recording of their 1st demo-tape “An Abode for Spirit and Flesh” and the limited edition boxset (100 copies) “FUNERAL NATION / 10 YEARS OF HORTUS ANIMAE” is released.
Alpha/Omega Management

OPPOSITE SIDES

Opposite Sides was founded in 2000 by Massimo "Arke", who wanted to create and perform technical Death Metal with lyrics based on existential topics. Shortly after, Steff (from the death band Entity) joined the project as the drummer and asked Amon 418 (from Hate Profile, ex Baratro, now playing with Hortus Animae) to play guitar.After rehearsing with some bassists and vocalists, Hypnos (guitarist from Hortus Animae) took care of the bass parts to complete the line-up and the band started to perform highly acclaimed live shows in North Italy, with Arke playing both guitar and vocals. In late 2002 the band started to record the 4 tracks CD "The Eclipse of Existence" at Fear Studio (Ephel Duath, Handful of Hate, Hortus Animae, Void of Silence, etc.) but shortly after split because of personal problems, and left the CD inside the Studio without vocals and solos. During one year and a half the band remained totally inactive and "The Eclipse of Existence" was later completed at Fear Studio with Martyr from Hortus Animae performing vocal duties and mixed at Alpha-Omega Studio (Ancient, Mortuary Drape, Hortus Animae, Cataract) in April 2004. Opposite Sides were reborn into a new life with a totally renewed line-up during summer of the same year. Martyr officially became the vocalist and Tyree from the thrash metal band Fear Dorg joined as the drummer. The band have been rehearsing with the new line-up to give it solidity and started to work on a full length album, as a lot of songs were already prepared since 2002: the new songs have a more straight attitude, a more complex structure and mature song-writing as a natural evolution since band's first days. The partnership with drummer Tyree ended but this didn't stop Opposite Sides, cause in June 2006 the band entered Fear Studio again to record the full-length album "Soul Mechanics ", this time featuring GroM (ex-Ancient, ex-DoomSword and current Hortus Animae drummer) on drums. Both "The Eclipse of Existence" and "Soul Mechanics" have been available as promotional CDs for labels and media, a taste of Opposite Sides' capabilities and potential. In June 2008 the band signs a deal with the spanish record label Mondongo Canibale for the worldwide release of the "Soul Mechanics" album.

SPACE MIRRORS

Space Mirrors are an international psychedelic space metal band consisting of Alisa Coral (Russia) and MichaelBlackman (Australia) plus special guests. During summer 2002 the first album of the Space Mirrors project "The Darker Side of Art" was conceived. The recordings began in August and soon it has truly become an international effort! MichaelBlackman (known for his Alien Dream albums, Australia) joined the recording on guitars. Two songs ("Dark Jedi" and "It's cold today in Underworld") were specially written for well known multi-talented musician Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon, Star One) from Holland. It was a real success when he agreed to take part in the album and recorded his guitar and vocals. Jim Lascko a.k.a. Finity (famous for Strange Daze Festivals in USA) designed the artwork layout and booklet. Steve Youles recorded acoustic guitar and solo for one track. It was beginning of 2003 already, vocals were recorded by Alisa and last bits and pieces of the album were left to be done. In March the final mixing of the album was completed. "The Darker Side of Art" is difficult to put in the limits of one style, it appeared to be a mixture of music styles: heavy, electronic, psychedelic, atmospheric and epic music based on a classic space rock approach (similar to Hawkwind and Ozric Tentacles with a touch of Chrome). Arjen's superheavy rhythm guitars added a heavy metal dimension to the music. Space Mirrors music deals with the darker side of the universe and so it was called "Infernal Apocalyptic Space Rock". After "The Darker Side of Art" was released it got very good reviews all around the world. The song "Pale Ghosts" was featured on Eclipse prog magazine "sampler vol.10" of July/August 2004 issue. But Alisa Coral and Michael Blackman didn't stop at what was achieved and began work on a new album which shows a significant progress comparing to the first one, its title is "Memories of the Future". Themes of the album deal with ancient civilizations and Ancient Astronauts theories, apocalyptic future and inspired by Frank Herbert's "Dune" novels. Musically it's a new step in Space Rock music scene. While remaining true to progressive and psychedelic roots of the classic Hawkwind and High Tide albums it takes the full advantage of the modern recording technology and takes music on a new level. Songs of this epic album feature heavy guitar riffing allied to the soaring multi-synths, different types of vocals and pounding rhythms. Dark and apocalyptic, some songs have industrial flavour. As it was described "the heaviest and closest to metal space rock album you have ever heard". Guest musicians who took part in "Memories of the Future" are Metatron (The Meads of Asphodel), Keith Kniveton (Starfield, ex-Hawkwind), Martin (Litmus) and Amber (Shadow Realms). Also Alisa Coral recorded synths for a track on new The Meads of Asphodel album "Damascus Steel". "Memories of the Future" was released on Sleaszy Rider Records in 2006. "Memories of the Future" was 22 in Top 100 albums of 2006 at Gagliarchives ahead of many famous names! (Gagliarchives is the leading Progressive Rock FM radio program and resource (USA). 2007: Space Mirrors recorded new album featuring Nik Turner (Hawkwind co-founder, Space Ritual, Inner City Unit), Cyndee Lee Rule (Spaceseed, Scattered Planets), Martyr Lucifer (Hortus Animae, Opposite Sides) and Amber. A new chapter in Space Mirrors history which brings you a research into the UFO conspiracy subjects in the form of a modern Space Metal.