Vulcano (band)

Vulcano is an extreme metal band from Santos, São Paulo, Brazil. Founded in 1981, it is one of the first Brazilian heavy metal bands of note;^[1] with reference to their influence on the South American black metal scene, Terrorizer reported that "many believe that Vulcano not only kick-started musical blasphemy in Brazil, but throughout the whole of Latin America".^[2] Vulcano is noted as an influence on Sepultura.^[1]

History

Brazil traditionally has not had much of an audience for metal, and even rock in Brazil was dominated by traditional music genres well into the 1990s. Because of this, recordings by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal just starting to become available in commercial venues in the early 1980s. At the same time, however, the international tape-trading scene that fueled the international development of death metal and black metal made early extreme metal recordings available to metal musicians in Brazil. An extreme metal scene started developing in Brazil, eventually including bands such as Vulcano as well as bands like Sepultura and Sarcófago that became much better known internationally in the 1990s. However, unlike the development of extreme metal scenes in Europe and the United States, Brazil's extreme metal scene did not develop out of much of an existing metal scene, so musicians of early bands like Vulcano had to build a network to promote and support their live performances from scratch. It was also difficult to acquire standard performing equipment.^[3]

It was in this environment that Zhema Paul Magrão, Carli Cooper formed Vulcano in 1981. Due to their early date of formation, Vulcano was one of the first black metal / death metal bands in all of Latin America. Their first record "Om Pushne Namah", was released in 1983, and is different from most early extreme metal in that the lyrics were sung in Portuguese, not English. The release of this album also marks the departure of Jose Piloni (drums) from the band. In this early period, it was very difficult to secure live performances, and the band had to produce their own shows, and promotion was limited to pasting up posters, but Vulcano persevered, and moved forward in 1984 to release the demo Devil on My Roof.

Vulcano released a live recording Live! in 1985 to gain exposure to a greater audience outside of their home city of Santos. Live! was recorded in August in the city of Americana, without any mixing, and with a lineup of Zhema on bass, Soto Junior on guitar, Zé Flávio in guitar, drums and Lauder Piloni Angel on vocals. This served as preparation for Vulcano to record the first Brazilian black metal album Bloody Vengeance in 1986. In the years following the band released Anthropophagy (1987) and Who Are the True (1988). Throughout this period, Vulcano got access to increasingly better production as the metal scene in Brazil grew further. However, after releasing their fifth album Rat Race in 1990, Vulcano stopped releasing new albums for several years. In this period of reflection the Vulcano still did some live shows, but the only official release from the band was a Mushroom Records compilation from 2000 with a re-release of the song "Bloody Vengeance".

In December 2001, Vulcano were taken by surprise by the death of Soto Jr. (guitar), who died of high blood pressure. In 2004, Vulcano staged a comeback with a new album entitled Tales from the Black Book with Zhema (bass), Angel (vocals), Arthur Von Barbarian (drums), Andre Martins (guitar) and Claudio Passamani (guitar). In 2006 Vulcano released two new songs in a split vinyl titled Thunder Metal with Nifelheim from Sweden, with the songs "The Evil Always Return" and "Suffered Souls". In 2009, Vulcano released another album, Five Skulls and One Chalice.

In 2010, Angel left the band again. In his place, Vulcano recruited Luiz Carlos Louzada (Hierarchical Punishment, Chemical Disaster) to assist in the band's first tour in Europe, the so-called Bloody Vengeance Tour in Europe 2010, which went through 14 countries, playing 18 shows.

In 2011, the band invited Arthur Von Barbarian to resume the sticks and record the album Drowning in Blood, released in September through Renegados Records.

In 2013 they released The Man The Key The Beast and made their third european tour together with the band Nifelheim in the Thunder Metal tour followed by a brazilian tour and estabilished with Zhema (guitar), Luiz Louzada (vocals), Arthur Von Barbarian and Ivan Pellicciotti The Darkest (bass guitar, who has been also Vulcano´s producer since 2005).

Band members

• Zhema Rodero — guitar (1981–present)
• Luiz Carlos — vocals (1997–1999, 2010–present)
• Ivan Pellicciotti The Darkest - bass guitar
• Arthur Von Barbarian — drums (2011–present)

Discography

Studio albums

• Bloody Vengeance (1986)
• Anthrophofagy (1987)
• Who Are the True (1988)
• Ratrace (1999)
• Tales from the Black Book (2004)
• Five Skulls and One Chalice (2009)
• Drowning in Blood (2011)
• The Man the Key the Beast (2013)

Demos

• Devil on My Roof (1984)

Live albums

• Vulcano Live! (1985)

Splits

• Thunder Metal (2006) with Nifelheim

References

External links

• Official website
• Bloody Vengeance review at Allmusic