ANTHEMON

If ANTHEMON (1997 - 2007) never stood up from the mass in terms of fame and commercial success, it really did in a musical point of view. How many bands took such artistic risks, evolving all the time into more diversified and complex music even if it meant taking a path that doesn't lead to a larger audience ?
Born in January 1997 as a duet, ANTHEMON turns into a real band only after the release of a demo CD titled Nocturnal Contemplations in October 1998, created with the assistance of a female singer who is not part of the band.
The good echoes of this first try makes it possible for the band to get known into the French underground and to get a full line-up.
In November 2000, Talvi (Winter in Finnish), a 7 titles MCD, which reveals wider influences than the previous release, comes to life. With this EP, the band earns a consequent reputation thanks to the good reception of both the press and the audience.
In 2001, ANTHEMON composes and prepares the recording of its first true album. Arcanes takes form while the negotiations with some labels lead to the signature with Thundering Records, which releases the album in February 2003.
Arcanes is the beginning of the collaboration of ANTHEMON with Ahti Kortelainen (Tico-Tico Studio, Finland), offering for the first time a production of international quality to the band.
With Arcanes, ANTHEMON is seen as a skilled band, able to propose a personal music which draws the best of different musical styles to get a coherent and new mixture of it. The gates of success are wide open.
A few months later, ANTHEMON works on its successor, an ambitious album which represents a more marked evolution of the bands musical face.
Whereas the repetitions for this new album begin, the band decides to give up the female vocals and chose to get a full time male singer instead, even if it means to disorientate and lose the fans of the first hour
Dystopia, released in November 2004, shows a huge evolution of the band. By mixing their vast panel of influences through a more progressive, darker, and increasingly personal music, the members of the band won the bet to describe the terrible world created in the lyrics, where freedom of men is nothing but an illusion. Dystopia is mainly well seen by both the press and audience, even if the absence of female vocals and the difficulty of categorising the music leaves some old fans behind. But on the other hand the band claims its total artistic independence by the means of this album.
In early 2005, ANTHEMON starts the preparation of a new album, which is released on November of the same year. The successor of Dystopia, carrying the curious title of Kadavreski (contraction of Cadavre Exquis(exquisite corpse)), the band goes on with its search for symbiosis of multiple influences.
By proposing 4 titles, one of them lasting 23 minutes, divided into A Side and B side as some kind of tribute to the progressive rock giants of the seventies, this album, shows ANTHEMON at its best. Very melodic and abundant in arrangements, Kadavreski is distinguished from its predecessors from his larger stylistic variety and an overall more violent and darker approach.
Kadavreski was not supposed to be ANTHEMON's last album. But, for the band split-up in september 2007, it became the ultimate legacy of a band who put artistic ambitions above any other concerns.
The band was writting a new album just before the split. Titled Aloïs, this abandoned work will never be recorded.

Nicolas Joyeux
I spent 5 years as a member of Anthemon. These years have been very enriching, on a musical level as much as on a personnal level. Anthemon is the only band with whom I went on stage and with whom I discovered the studio experience. I could express myself musically and play in a band with a full line-up. These 5 years will stay engraved in me, after one demo and an album recorded, and after sharing the stage with bands suchs as The Old Dead Tree, The Last Embrace and the Epsilon Association. Beyond all, I'd like to thank Sylvain, Marc, Sébastien, Alexandre and of course Nathalie! I wish them good luck for their forthcoming musical adventures!
Loïc Malassagne
My passage in Anthemon has been enriching both on the human level and on the musical level, just like every new experience. I'll remember (from a lot of different things) a great welcome during my audition and the emotion we felt when we started to play together. This so special live atmosphere attracted me from the start, and motivated me. It was a nice challenge! I'm proud to have been a part of two of the band's albums and to have given the best of myself back then. People are leaving but music stays!
Sylvain Bégot :
Anthemon really was a great adventure. These 10 years in this band have been very formative, for I earned a lot of experience. I also shared a lot of really emotional moments with my bandmates, as much from the ones who were there from the beginning as from the ones who joined our "brotherhood" later on. I'm proud of the music we made and the albums we did, especially the most controversial ones such as "Dystopia" (which remains my personnal favourite) and "Kadavreski". We progressed as much as we could. If I look back I can see that from the lame demo to the technically skilled "Kadavreski", Anthemon did a nice bit of road !