Sonic Reign

History

Formerly known as Megiddo.

1997 - Sebastian Schneider and Benjamin Borucki meet. We play in a somewhat melodic black metal band. During rehearsal breaks we play Emperor songs. We both soon quit the band and start doing our own shit. Search for rehearsal-room during winter. Bandname: Megiddo (after the Satyricon EP).

1998 - Rehearsing here and there till March or so. First material gathered for 'A Journey' demo, pretty melodic stuff. Considerations about new band members are soon quit. Feeling no need for even more discussions about songwriting. We find the perfect rehearsal-room, no troubles with our sound volume... Rehearsing a lot.

1999 - Recording of our first demo 'A Journey' in February. Recording session done under poor conditions. The "studio" is a barely heated cellar of a friend (actually it is the rehearsal-room of that melodic thing we quit). Snowfall and houling winds outside shortly let us consider a name change of the demo to 'Blizzard Beasts'. We just have a 4-track so we have to re-use every track whenever possible to include all the stuff we want. So when the vocals have a break we use that to record another guitar etc. Somehow we manage to tape the songs more or less the way we want them to sound. Rest of the year: writing new songs and lots of rehearsals.

2000 - Ideas seem to be quite rare these days. Our style changes to cold and modern black metal. We are filled up with that melodic synth crap. First new song is the first song we write that is exactly like what we want to sound. It is called 'End of Rebellion'. Slow songwriting but we know we are on our way. Bandname changes to Sonic Reign.

2001 - Completing the material for 'The Decline Portrait', our second demo. Bad timing urges us to postpone the recording session. Time for us to get into the depths of these songs and rehearse our asses off.

2002 - We enter the rehearsal room of the band Northern Gates in February to record 'The Decline Portrait'. Compared to the 'A Journey' times the equipment is awesome. The opportunities seem endless although from today's point of view they were quite outdated. The studio isn't heated either but you get used to it. Well at least this time we are able to do the songs just like we imagine. Forced songwriting on new stuff for the rest of the year. More and more we find the style we want. It feels great to see how everything turns out. First new song is 'Raw Dark Pure'.

2003 - Supreme Chaos Records get interested in Sonic Reign. We are offered a deal but we don't like it. Instead we write new songs. A long periode of discussions on what kind of deal we would sign begins. The material for the next SR output 'Raw, Dark, Pure' is nearly finished. In a rehearsal-recording-session we record the new title track.

2004 - In July we sign a deal that benefits both sides. 'The Decline Portrait' is released September 27th with 'Raw, Dark, Pure' as bonustrack. We are very content with the result. Our second album will be recorded in our own studio in spring 2005, it seems.

(source: the official Sonic Reign website, March 2005)