ALAS

Alas is the vision of Guitarist /Producer Erik Rutan of Hate Eternal/Morbid Angel/Ripping Corpse... with the desire to coalesce his classical roots with his metal evolution.. in 1994 while Erik was the guitarist with Morbid Angel he started his search for musicians to bring his vision to reality.. Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse and Howard Davis of the Genitorturers were his first recruits,along with Tracy Beam on vocals.. they recorded the first demo "Engulfed in Grief" a molten mixture of intricate haunting melodies set on top of brutal classical/metal riffs,and moving female operatic vocals bringing to life the sadness of Eriks lyrics, re-enforced by the powerful back-beat and relentless double bass patterns on drums.. songs like "Quest for Serenity" showed Eriks ability to make his guitars play like cellos and "Silencing the Sorrow" where the chorus riff channels Beethoven and "Rejection of what you Perceive" with its down right haunting bridge..Alas stirred a buzz in the Tampa metal community..fans of Erik and fellow musicians became curious to hear what Erik and Alexs' collaboration would produce.. with the aide of Jason Morgan of Monstrosity on second guitar they performed 2 jaw dropping shows...
at this point in time Erik was touring immensely with Morbid Angel so in what ever extra time was available he would get his musicians together to compose more Alas material.
and it was at this time that Alas suffered a great loss ,the mighty Cannibal Corpse was gaining more momentum in the realm of death metal and Alex Webster had to resign from the ranks with Alas to continue and fullfill his musical vision and dream,his prowess was missed dearly.. and we also saw the departure of Tracy Beam.. never giving up his dream of Alas ,Erik ever the opportunist took his demos and sold them while touring with Morbid Angel creating a international buzz for Alas,selling out ever copy..
it was on this European tour that Morbid was playing a festival in Poland,included in the line-up was Therion, and while Steve Tucker(Morbid Angel vocalist at the time) was walking thru the backstage area he heard a voice that was destined to be in Alas. Austrian born Martina Hornbacher was doing hear pre -show warmups ,Erik heard her and knew this was the voice of Alas...
Martina was flown to the states and a 3 song demo was made (these songs are on the musicplayer), of Absolute Purity,Endleesly Searching,and Loss of a Life... with this demo Erik was able to land a record deal with Hammerheart Records. with the standard set by Alex Webster for bass,Erik looked to his former Ripping Corpse bandmate and Berkley teacher Scot Hornick to play bass.
the line-up was complete and one of Eriks' most coveted masterpieces "Absolute Purity" was brought to life...