Amortis

Amortis is a Melodic Black Metal band from Austria - formed in 1994. They have released two demos, one EP and two full-length albums. They have been on hold for a while, now but, surely will have future plans due to their current signing with popular German label; Last Episode. Their lyrical themes include; Death, Suicide and Dreams and their albums story-structure generally convey a story of dreams of death, visions of death and then them coming true.

In 1995, band members; Peter, Chris and Martin started off as a small Death Metal band just for their own sake, they were nothing serious. They covered songs of acts like Hypocrisy, Six Feet Under etc. and eventually wrote their own songs and originally decided to call the group Penetralia. After some time they had already written a bunch of songs including Cradle of Penetralia, Under the Moonlight, Tears of Hope etc. Their style was considered old-school Death Metal - simple yet, efficient.

Penetralia also got the chance to play their first gig at a well-known party in Austria. The concert was not the way they had expected it but, nevertheless gave them the chance to present their material to a larger crowd for the first time.

The trio was pleased with their efforts so far but, was in need of a bass player. They had been searching for a suitable person for months however, it seemed that Death Metal bass players were very rare. This gave Chris the idea to simply get in touch with a good bass player. So, they found a guy named Simon from a Hardcore/Crossover band Igneus. Originally, they asked him to join Penetralia for at least one rehearsal, to find out whether they could play together or not. Shortly after Simon rehearsed with them, finding good chemistry he joined Penetralia and quit his previous band.

In 1996, Peter and Chris decided to change their name from Penetralia to Amortis. Peter had already written some new material that sounded much more Melodic and went more into the Black Metal. The band found Amortis a much more suitable name to their style. In October, the first song they wrote together, as Amortis was entitled "Beauty in Darkness" - a Black/Doom Metal ballad with more Melody than ever before.

After playing the early Amortis songs, two more Melodic Black songs called The Lost Angel and A Kiss from the Dusk came in. This early material seems to be their work that was featured more during concerts. Their first show took place in February 1997, in a Youth Center of St. Georgen, where they also used to rehearse at Chris' home. It was a huge success and pushed as forward a lot. Furthermore, they found out that they had the potential to make something out of this band.

Clemens' father got to know Chris Scheidl, who was having a recording studio near their home and it was going to be their next step to record a demo. So, they started to practice hard and finally entered the "Bush D. A. Bush" Studio for one day to release Amortis' material on CD. Although, Chris had not been working with a metal band before he managed to adapt the sound they wanted to have.

In Summer 1997, Amortis' first release "A Kiss from the Dusk" saw the dark of the world and was raved very well among the large Austrian metal community and was featured in various metal magazines. The demo contains seven songs, including an intro and was a total running of approximately thirty minutes. Amortis had released another demo called "Memories Of An Ancient Time" and was shortened into an EP, which was released on Last Episode and have had a long contract with them.

Due to some delays with both Last Episodes and Amortis it took a while to release their first full-length album "Summoned by Astral Fires" but, was eventually released in April, 2000. The album had eight songs and ran in around fifty-nine minutes. This album showed that Austria that they were one of the rare bands that actually were signed with Last Episodes with bands that have signed such as Belphegor, Dark Fortress, Nokturnal Mortum and Behemoth.

After staying motivated from their prior success they did many different concerts and a year after their notably successful first album, they released "Gift Of Tongues", in 2001 of September. It has seven songs and was fifty minutes and thirty seconds of length. This album was not so well raved about but, was re-released by Blackend Records in 2002. After this, they became less active.