Decadence (band)

Decadence
Origin	Stockholm, Sweden
Genres	Thrash metal Death metal
Years active	2003 – present
Labels	HTI Records Massacre Records
Website	www.decadence.se
Members
Kitty Saric Kenneth Lantz Joakim Antman Erik Röjås
Past members
Peter Lindqvist

Decadence is a melodic thrash metal band from Stockholm, Sweden, formed in November 2003.

About Decadence

Decadence is a Melodic Thrash Metal band formed in November 2003 in Stockholm, Sweden. Decadence can be seen as one of the representatives of the new generation of Thrash Metal. Like classic Thrash, Decadence plays with intensity and speed but are adding melodic art and technicality to their genre that they call Melodic Thrash Metal.

Melodic Thrash Metal is like the bridge where Thrash and Melodic Death meet. This genre can be described as Thrash Metal with the heaviness of Melodic Death Metal without keyboards. An addition of extreme, aggressive female vocals and growl techniques as well as Thrash Metal screams is added to the mix. The combination of these effects along with the new touch of Thrash Metal gives a specific sound which is what defines Decadence.

This will describe the bands' overall sound quite well. The riffs have a Thrash Metal basis but we have added a melodic touch to them as well as extreme, aggressive female vocals instead of what would be heard on clean vocal based Thrash sounds. The keyboards are replaced by harmony lines made by guitar. Decadence music is recommended to people who appreciate bands like Death, Kreator, Testament, Metallica and the like.

Biography

| 2003 | Before Decadence time, Metallic Kitty had been asked to join a project known as Dekapitera which led to nothing but a dead-end. This was her original plan for a pure Melodic Death Metal band with influences form the Finnish Death Metal scene with "Heavy Dose" (which was later given to Decadence) as its only song at the time. Dekapitera was also from where the name Decadence later evolved. Metallic Kitty decided to move on and by impulse she came to audition a band originally started by the former guitarists of Decadence: Christian Lindholm and Niclas Rådberg. They had quit their first band Devastator to form this new band and asked the drummer Peter Lindqvist (who they met on on a gig) if he wanted to join up in their plans and he accepted.

As Kenneth Lantz often followed Metallic Kitty to band practices with this new band he ended up being the session bass player as a side project of his band Demented where he was the guitarist.

The band was now completed and quickly got gigs and as the first gig came so fast they had to make up a band name as soon as possible and that was when the band decided to make an official name and it ended up being Metallic Kitty's old idea: Decadence.

After about half a year had passed, Peter decided he would quit Decadence. He had two other bands (A-Bros and Canopy) and due to lack of time for a third band he decided that he would focus fully on the both of them since Decadence was still in the early developing stage and he had not enough faith and motivation for it. | 2004 | The year began with Decadence auditioning drummers. When two months had passed, Metallic Kitty found drummer Patrik Frögéli and he joined the band. Once again the band was completed, in February. A few weeks later Decadence completed their first demo, "Land of Despair", still with Peter Lindqvist on drums. Kenneth Lantz recorded and mixed the whole demo during a stressful time limit. The demo is currently only available in limited quantities. However, the problems continued growing in the band. Christian Lindholm was to join the military service and it caused a division in the band with him an Niclas Rådberg on one side and Metallic Kitty, Kenneth Lantz and Patrik Frögéli on the other. About a month later, Decadence separated ways with both guitarists. Session bassist Kenneth Lantz then joined the band as the new lead guitarist, quit his band Demented and put Decadence on a higher priority level than before.

Decadence then started auditioning bassists and rhythm guitarists. Bassist Roberto Vacchi Segerlund joined after about a month (since he had been in contact with the band before concerning the drummer replacement that went to Patrik Frögéli) and grhythm guitarist Mikael Sjölund joined after about three months, the fall of 2004. Decadence had now completed their second line-up. | 2005 | In March 2005 Decadence completed their first full length album entitled "Decadence", once again with Kenneth Lantz behind the recording. It was a success for the band and the gigs started flowing. This was the year when the name was brought up to the public and the word started spreading fast about the band. After almost a year's gigging and touring Decadence went through a major update once again. There had been plenty of arguments and internal problems in the band. The new members' personal chemistry began causing conflict and the band was having a hard time holding things together. After the summer tour in 2005, Metallic Kitty had gotten huge health issues due to all the stressful situations that were caused by these problems and, after a serious band meeting, she finally replaced Mikael Sjölund by Daniel Green and Roberto Vacchi Segerlund by Joakim Antman in June. Patrik Frögéli was also replaced by Erik Röjås in August the same year and everything calmed down.

Metallic Kitty felt that after this situation it was time to give Decadence all strength needed to secure it once and for all. In November, Decadence had once more completed a new album, their second fullength, entitled "The Creature" which is often referred to by fans and reviewers as "the aftermath of violence". | 2006 | The year began with a negative repetition of the curse with the band member changes. The four current members (Metallic Kitty, Kenneth Lantz, Joakim Antman and Erik Röjås) had grown strong together but Daniel Green was slowly sliding away from Decadence goals and work. Together, Decadence took the hard decision to part ways with ex-rhythm guitarist Daniel Green in March 2006 to keep the peace that the four tight members had gotten together. Instead of rushing another guitarist in the band again, Decadence decided to slowly search for the right person this time. The band decided to play with a session guitarist until the right person for the job appeared. Ulf Sörman of Castillion then joined as a session guitarist for five shows.

In October 2006, Decadence officially announced their signing to Metallic Kitty's newly started indie record label HTI Records and the 2nd of November in 2006, Decadence completed their third full length album entitled "3rd Stage of Decay", once again with Kenneth Lantz behind the recording. The title symbolized the band's 3rd and strongest line-up it had ever had had and the whole album was as secure as the band itself. | 2007 | Metallic Kitty found guitarist Simon Galle and he soon joined as the new session guitarist working his way up to a stable place in Decadence. The band was happy to offer him a permanent place in Decadence the 26th of July 2007 and welcome him to the family. The year continued going on its positive path and it followed with Decadence licensing "3rd Stage of Decay" (2nd edition) to Japanese label Spiritual Beast and distribution through Universal Japan. This was the first time that Decadence music started to seriously spread even further than the underground which had been its home up until then. | 2008 | Earache Records showed interest in Decadence and used the track "Corrosion" from "3rd Stage of Decay" on their 2008 "best of new school Thrash Metal" compilation "Thrashing Like A Maniac" and shortly thereafter Decadence gave a future license to Massacre Records for worldwide distribution of "3rd Stage of Decay" (3rd edition of the album) and more albums to come.

Just before the completion of the new album, Simon Galle suddenly and without warning left the band. His own words were: "Sup everyone... I feel now that I've been here and done this for a while and I feel satisfied, I apologize to the people that wanted to hear more of my guitar playing but I feel that I had enough, and my lust for this is gone - therefore it would be bad both for me and the rest if I kept on going doing something that takes more energy than it gives. I'm still going to be proud when Decadence takes over the world though. I'm going to try for sports now. Love to all the good people I met on the road!". He will be missed but we all wish him luck with sports and whatever he wishes to do in the future. Decadence is down to its solid quartet once again. All focus is now on the new album.

Members

• Kitty Saric – vocals
• Kenneth Lantz – 1st guitar
• Joakim Antman – bass
• Erik Röjås – drums

Discography

• Land of Despair (Demo, 2004)
• Decadence (2005)
• The Creature (2005)
• 3rd Stage of Decay, 1st edition (limited-2006), 2nd edition (Japanese-2007) and 3rd edition (worldwide-2008)
• Chargepoint, (2009)

External links

• Decadence - official website
• Decadence - official Myspace