RAVENDARK

The band was formed in 2002 under the name of KARNAGE by former members JUAN GUILLERMO FRANCO (Lead Guitars), BRIAN ALZATE (Rhythm Guitars) and SERGIO ZAPATA (Drums), with the intentions of building a Thrash Metal project. The band created their first song, spending several hours of rehearsal with the absence of a vocalist and bass player, in addition with the lack of technique and musical abilities. That song never had a name and was discarded in a matter of months due to its simplicity and poor structure.
On 2003, the band changed their pure Thrash oriented sound into a Power/Heavy Metal direction, and as a consequence, their name also changed to DEVIANT SHRINE. During that period, their first instrumental song (because they didn’t have a vocalist, yet) was written: “Spiritual War”. Unfortunately, this song is again under construction due to constant and diverse musical changes brought by actual members. Taking back the course of the band, JORGE ECHEVERRY (Bass Guitar) joins the quartet, providing the chance to complete the rhythmical section and the writing of their first complete song: BREATH OF ANGER, causing a drastic change in the band’s name from DEVIANT SHRINE to RAVENDARK, inspired from a song called BLASHYRKH (Mighty Ravendark), originally performed by IMMORTAL, the Norwegian Black Metal Gods. This series of events motivated a serious change in their musical direction, seeking a perfect mix among a wide variety of metal genres as HEAVY, POWER, SPEED, THRASH and some HARDCORE traces. In 2005, the singer EDWARD BULA takes the singing tasks, completing their line-up at last, followed by the recording of their first 2-track Demo, “The Staccato Sessions”, with a conventional tape recorder due to the impossibility to afford a professional studio. The tracks included there were the earliest versions of BREATH OF ANGER and the instrumental SPIRITUAL WAR. A few months later, strong personal differences grew among the members and the band split up as a consequence. Nevertheless, the eager desire to create the music that they feel obsessed with withstood the test of time and brought them back into the rehearsal rooms, unfortunately with the absence of BRIAN FELIPE and EDWARD BULA. Even though their line-up was incomplete again, RAVENDARK continued playing and composing without a singer and a rhythm guitar until ANDRES PUERTA finally came out to handle vocal duties with his powerful and yet melodic voice. In 2006, taking advantage of their moderate improved abilities and a new singer, the band recorded their Second Demo (again with a conventional tape recorder), “Staccato Sessions II”, with songs as SPIRITUAL WAR (Instrumental early version), BREATH OF ANGER and WATCH THEM DIE (a new song for that year). As a second event, RAVENDARK had their first ever underground live performance on November the 25th with bands as CARNIFICE, BOHEMIAN EUPHONY, YOGSOTHOG and VALKIRIA. Time passed by and the band continued to practice as four member group until 2007 with the arrival of the Rhythm guitar player CARLOS CASTILLO.
In the beginning of 2008, a new phase for RAVENDARK begins with the replacement of the composer, lead guitar and former member JUAN GUILLERMO by CAMILO MORALES, contributing powerful riffs and ideas to finish THE RAVEN, the band’s longest song to date and their first song in Spanish, SENTENCIADOS, expressing relentless wrath and despise against the ever-growing wave of violence that punishes our country. In 2008, the band performed and organized their first Metal festival, METAL A LA U, at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia on Friday, November 28th with bands as BONES CRUSHER, MÖRWEN, CARNIFICE, BOHEMIAN EUPHONY, and the well known Black/Dark Metal band BLESS THE SILENCE. This year, former member and bassist JORGE ECHEVERRY is replaced by ESTEBAN LOPEZ, allowing the band to be complete again. Nowadays the band is composing two brand new songs and practicing a cover song, all of them to be released during this year. A professional live session will be recorded soon with new, faster, and better versions of the old tunes with the current RAVENDARK members…… THE BEST IS YET TO COME!!....STAY HEAVY AND LONG LIFE TO ROCK & ROLL!!