Benighted Soul

Biography Benighted Soul is a french Symphonic Metal band founded three years ago. Their music is about contrast between agressive metal music and classical inspirations. Benighted Soul was, at the beginning, influenced by famous bands like After Forever and Nightwish but the band finally found its own style and direction. Genesis Benighted Soul was founded in September 2002 when Géraldine Gadaut began to search for musicians who could take part to a "band that would sound like Nightwish". Yet, the band was only complete in June 2003.

Biography Benighted Soul is a french Symphonic Metal band founded three years ago. Their music is about contrast between agressive metal music and classical inspirations. Benighted Soul was, at the beginning, influenced by famous bands like After Forever and Nightwish but the band finally found its own style and direction. Genesis Benighted Soul was founded in September 2002 when Géraldine Gadaut began to search for musicians who could take part to a "band that would sound like Nightwish". Yet, the band was only complete in June 2003. Yann Pacaud, at the synths, and Géraldine Gadaut, lyrical singer gave to the band its style and direction. Jérémie Heyms, guitar player and Jean-Gabriel Bocciarelli, bass player and singer, have both influences in contrast with the other members (Pantera, Static-X, Gojira, Strapping Youg Lad...). This variety of influences gave a real originality to the creations of the band. Yohann Kostrzewa hadn't played drums for a long time but at this time, he was making huge progresses. 2003: First successes. On its very first show, the band performed Nightwish & After Forever's covers and few compositions. It was a big surprise for Benighted Soul to find an audience so enthousiastic. After this first success, the band focused on compositions in order to record a first demo.

Meanwhile, it kept playing concerts, especially for charity manifestations. The 4 tracks - demo Enchantment was released in October 2004. To promote this first opus, Benighted Soul performed live in Nancy with the support of the french newspaper Est Républicain. The band also took part to local radio programs. Despite these successes, Yohann left the band for personnal reasons in November 2004. 2005: A Rebirth. To replace Yohann, Eric Palumbo, very good drummer and long-time friend, joined the band.

With him, the band has known a fantastic bloom. First, we performed live at Perennial Fest II, which was what we can call a "first professionnal scene" for the band. It were opening for Aborted and Imperial Sodomy. It was a real challenge for them because the audience was there to hear extreme metal and wasn't really fan of Symphonic Metal. But Benighted Soul did it good and rocked it all ! A DVD of this performance was realized by TDK PRODS (www.tdkprod.com) and is now available.

The band also performed with Insane at Chalons en Champagne (8/10/2005). As their music was evolving in a tougher way, they decided to record a new demo, "Catharsis" (greek word for "purification by art"). This Cd reveals Benighted Soul's new style : more agressive. It also announces a new inspiration for the lyrics : Greek Mythology. Members : Jérémie Heyms (Guitars) Eric Palumbo (Drums) Geraldine Gadaut (Vocals) Yann Pacaud (Synths) Jean Gabriel Bocciarelli (Bass) Official website of the band : www.benightedsoul.com User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..