History

Essenza was born in 1993, when the young guitarist Carlo Rizzello and his brother Alessandro, bass-guitar player, started to play in many rock clubs and festivals in Southern Italy. At first, other members collaborated with the band on voice, guitar and keyboards. Luca, the youngest of Rizzello brother, joined Essenza as drummer and arranger, and enriched the Essenza sound by playing string and keyboards. In this period, their music was an explosive cocktail of blues, hard rock, rock and roll, prog rock with classical Italian rock influences.

After the release of two demo CD's ('Essenza' and 'Algoritmo 60', in 1996 and in 1998 respectively) they increased the heaviness of the sound and elaborated an original melodic heavy rock style, inspired to the monsters of international heavy metal (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Van Halen...), but with Italian lyrics.

Kick Promotion Agency signed the band in 2000, and then they recorded two studio-albums: 'Suggestioni' (2000) (containing new recordings of the songs released in the two demo-cds) and 'Contrasto' (2002). In November 2004 Luca left the band and was replaced by the drummer Paolo Colazzo (from the bands Abash and Shade Out).

In april of 2006, in the occasion of the 13th anniversary of Essenza establishment, the band releases 'XIII Anniversary Live' (fully available on-line), an unofficial recording of a performance in Bari, Italy, containing original songs and covers.

In 2007, the band promotes and distributes the EP 'Dance of Liars', containing English lyrics (for the first time) and the videoclip 'Deep into Your Eyes'.

In 2009, the band joins the Armageddoom Alliance and the indipendent label Bigmud Records publishes the full-lenght album 'Devil's Breath', that was the completion of the 'Dance of Liars' EP.

(source: Essenza, November 2011)