name: ATER
genres: symphonic black metal, death metal, folk metal, thrash metal
years active: 1997-2000
bio: After a lot of difficulties, a new era for my activity as band, finally professional as I always tried to bring it to (I never played for amusement, like the multitude of peers usually did). A new experienced drummer, one of the best black/death vocalist around (absolutely natural – he didn’t use even a compressor – strong and long-breathed vocals and an enthusiastic bass-player joined me and what remained of the old line-up.
Totally re-arranging and enriching an old “abused” song titled “Rape of the Mind” (today I collected about 5-6 different versions!), we self-produced our first promo-tape, amidst some technical troubles: absolutely to be mentioned, the bass player wounded at the hand and some falls of tension (we recorded it with a primitive equipment and we had to turn the spool by hand sometimes!!!)…till the mixing, to keep intact the Pagan attitude of the work, done in a forest-studio powered by a generator! Finally we got unanimous good responses and I can say that has been a nice period of my group activity, untill new interferences inside the band wasted all, once again. Our last attempt to work together was the recording of our first full-lenght, after having obtained a contract from another rip-off label (Alkaid Records / Milan). At about half of the recordings, we realized the label has vanished away, leaving us into debts with the recording studio. Meanwhile the band split. I tried to records all again in another studio of a friend of mine (Big Wave Studio), alone with another bass player and a drum-machine, but uselessly, since the enthusiasm faded away little by little and when a crack in the studio hard-disk ruined all the work I understood I should have not to work with other persons anymore. That’s the end of my activity as band. So I decided to concentrate all my efforts in the other solo-projects I irregularly carried on, putting Metal music away amidst the memories of my youth…