Arafel

Arafel ("fog" in hebrew) was created in 1997 in Tel Aviv-Israel, by former Soviet Union origin youngsters. The band started to play Black Metal, influenced by Slavonic folk music. In April 1999 Arafel recorded their four demo songs "Skazki Starogo Lesa" ("Tales of Ancient Forest") at Delphi studio, released by the Latvian label "Beverina". 500 copies of this demo were released and totally sold out after a short time.

After playing some local gigs and some line up adding,the first full length album "The Way of Defender", a concept album about national Russian hero, Alexander Nevsky, Grand Duke of Russia of 13 century, was recorded at Selani studio( Poland ) and released on 2003.Short time after its release the album gained attention from unexpected places and ranked in high scores in few metal magazines around the globe.At the same year Arafel was signed under the Russian label "Sound Age" and promoted by Sauron Productions.

In October 2004 new full length album "The second strike: Through the flame of the ages" was recorded in STUDIO X (Olsztyn) with the cooperation of familiar names from the genre.Later on in 2005 the album was distributed in Germany , Austria and Switzerland by Twilight-Vertrieb.At the same year it became the most purchased album in Israel of all times.

In the beginning of 2006 Arafel recruited new members for live performances and gave the critics a lot to talk about.
After several more line up changes and few shows, the band absorbed some hard blows which lead to the decision of changing the course it went so far by adding a violin as part of the line-up.
Early 2009 the band took its musicale core to much more folk atmosphere along with rough death-metal elements and added its final member of the horde which completed the current lineup:
Helge-vocals
Felius-guitars
R.K-bass
Leshii-drums
Nasha-violin
Between 2009-2010 ARAFEL finished work on the new album named ?FOR BATTLE ONCE FOUGHT?. The art contribution belongs to well-known artist Kris Verwimp (Absu, Ancient Rites, Moonsorrow ?). The recording was done, mixed and mastered between in October 2009 and January 2010 in HERTZ studio (Poland) with Wojtec and Slawek Wieslawski (Behemoth, ,Vader, Decapitated?). Additional clean vocals were performed by Yohaj Davidoff ( Reign of Architect, Prowlers, ex-Acropolis) and recorded at Amaseffer studio by Yuval Kramer (http://www.amaseffer.com/)
The album contents 8 tracks filled by aggression and epic war atmosphere.
Nowadays ARAFEL has signed a deal with NoiseArt Records (http://www.myspace.com/noiseart) and with Rock The Nation booking agency (http://www.rockthenation.eu/).The new cd "For Battles once Fought" will release at 28/01/2011 and ARAFEL will take a part in PAGAN FEST tour at March 2011.