Undercroft

Undercroft is one of the most important Death Metal bands of Chile. The beginning of Undercroft is marked by the appearance of their mythical 2 first demos "To Final The Battle" the pioneer one, appeared in May of 1993. Then came "Demons Awake... Revenge is Near" in November of the same year. That led them to the their debut album, called "Twisted Souls", this one was recorded in 1995. After many shows both in northern and southern Chile, an opening act for Kreator in their second chilean visit, in the now dissapeared venue "Manuel Plaza". It was also their first international visit, playing opening act in Buenos Aires, Argentina for the swedish act Therion. Two years later, in 1997, the album "Bonebreaker" appeared. During these period their played together with Morbid Angel in their first chilean visit, in the Monumental Theater. Making another succesfull tour in the southern and northern Chile and the second visit abroad, this time to Lima, Peru, sharing the stage with the mitical bands Mortem and Estigma. In September of 1998 the album "Re-Demolition" is released, which is the re-edition of both demos of the band, plus some tracks taken from the recording of "Bonebreaker" adding a cover of the grind gods Napalm Death. After a long silence, Undercroft recorded one of their best work to date, "Danza Macabra", released in August of 2000. The album marks some changes in the line-up, bringing more of the force and power that has always characterized the band. This album was a great step forward for Undercroft. The line-up was: Claudio Illanes on Guitars, Pablo Cortez on Drums and Alvaro Lillo Voice and Bass... A complete Chilean tour followed the realese of "Danza Macabra" taking the band to the most prestigious venues in Santiago and other Chilean cities. For the live gigs they began to use a guset guitarist, to give the live performance the same sound and power as the studio recording. After the success of "Danza Macabra", Undercroft decided to expand their frontiers. Recruiting a second guitarist “Koke” and so with decision and great sacrifices they left Chile for Europe in March of 2001, specifically for Sweden. Where they recorded a new album, 11 new songs with the famous swedish producer Daniel Bergstrand (STL, Meshuggah, Lord Belial, among others) at Studio Dug out in Uppsala. After the recording of this new album, which took three weeks to complete, they came in contact with several people, playing some gigs in Sweden, Poland and Germany. Before the europen tour was over “Koke” decided to leave the band for personal reasons. Pablo braga from the argentinian outfit Lobotomy came to the bands aid and played the rest of the tour. They attracted the attention of several Record Labels, and they decided to sign a Record deal with Pavement/Crash Music to release this new album. The album will be on the record stores by April 2002, and it wll be called “Evilution”. On the chilean territory, the album will be released by WAR Discos, the label that has released all the previous material of the band. Before the trip back to Chile the band met and recruited a new guitar player. Etienne Belmar (ex Lobotomy, Sweden RIP) took the place left vacant by Koke and became the new lead guitarist of the band. Undercroft returned to Chile at the end of 2001, planning to return to Europe in April/May of 2002 to continue with the massive European Destruction. A full Tour of Chile was made including neighbours Bolivia and Peru. The band returned to Europe and started their campaign on July/ August of 2002. Rehearsing and playing live with the new old line up consisting of founder members Pablo Cortez on drums, Claudio Illanes on guitar, Alvaro Lillo vocals/bass and Etienne Belmar on lead guitar. The band has an infamous reputation as a great live act, playing the Close-up party gig, the biggest metal mag of Scandinavia sharing the stage with celebrities as Amon Amarth and Merciless. Continuing the tour through Sweden, Germany, Poland, Belgium among others. Undercroft took some time of and recorded 3 new studio tracks in the and a complete live show at the prestigious Fuck Christmas fest in Hamburg Germany on December of 2003, showing the bands strength as alive act. An album of the recording would be released in 2004. The title is Bastard…. live in Hamburg. The album contains the 3 new songs and a video of the evilusion song. After an impressive performance at the Fuck Christmas Undercroft was invited to play the Fuck eastern fest on April of 2004. After a great show the band attracted the attention of the the german label tiefdruck musik and signed a deal with them a couple of months later. The first fruit of their cooperation will be a re-release of the Evilusion CD which is almost inpossible to find in stored since the demice of Crash music. The album will feature a totally new artwork, 3 live songs, 3 new songs and will be remastered in Germany. Release date is August of 2004. The band will do some serious touring to support the re-release of the album. The Live Album IS OUT NOW !! After a hectic period in wich the band played great shows with Suffocation (US), Pungent Stench (A), Crowbar (US), Hatesphere (DK). They did find time to record 4 cover songs to be used in a future re-release of the album Danza Macabra on tiefdruck musik. During early 2005, the band was once again busy writing and rehearsing what will be the new album. With the working title of "Demonized", the fans will see the band returning more to it´s roots with a faster pace and a more aggresive sound. Release sometime this summer (europe). We will keep you posted on any news. In march 2005, the band began the production of their 5th Studio album togeteher with the production team of Markus Geiger and Jan Rubach at the Rekorder studios in hamburg Germany. The band was never really happy with the vocal work of singer Alvaro Lillo, and after a break to play some summer festivals among others United metal maniacs, a gig with kataklysm (CAN) and an appereance at the Headbangers open air, decided in cooperation with their record label to make a drastic change. Due to the serious disagreements, poor vocal performance and also summoning severe personal issues, the band decided to fire singer/bass player Alvaro Lillo. The band started inmediately to audition and recruited a new member in october 2005, the brazilian born Erik Vieira who took care of the singer/bass player position. Our record label Tiefdruck-musik recommended us to remove some riffs and all the lyrics written by the former singer. An issue that the band took very seriously and the band returned to the studio in december 2005 to finish off the new production with the new singer. Erik Vieira left the band and the label with a really good feeling after an excellent vocal performance. Tiefdruck-Musik will release the new studio album called "Lethally Growing" on the 18th of August 2006. At the end of June the label will release a single with 2 songs of this new album, that will kick off the promotion campaign. The website of the band will be updated as well with a better and more complete info for our followers.