Agonia Records is pleased to welcome Italy's HOUR OF PENANCE to its roster. The technical, brutal death metal band has signed a record deal with the Polish-based label in November of 2018, after parting ways with Prosthetic Records, via whom the band released three of their last albums, including 2017's "Cast The First Stone". Currently HOUR OF PENANCE is on the final lap of writing songs for the album's as yet untitled successor, set for a 2019 release.
HOUR OF PENANCE commented: "We’re really excited to announce that Hour of Penance signed a new deal with Agonia Records. The first friut of our cooperation, a new album, is coming in 2019. It’s great to be part of a label that has always been focused on quality extreme metal and it’s the right place to spread our music and brutalize the ears of extreme metal fans all over the world with the new songs we’ve composed. We’re working very hard to bring you our finest and best sounding album so far and we cannot wait to start recording. More details will be revealed in the upcoming months, so keep your eyes open".
HOUR OF PENANCE has steadily been making a name for themselves as one of the most intense, talented and impressive death metal bands around, both in the studio and on stage. Pouring heart into death metal and releasing emotions into what they do, they can easily be described as a beast of a perfomer; they even have a philosophy around it. "Death metal is more than just music", states the band. "It transcends such a limited mortal state of mind. Death metal is the aural expression of humanity’s darkest side, of devastation, sorrow and the harbinger of mankind’s own inhumanity and ultimately its destruction. Death metal is not a trend, a fashion parade or a mean to an end. It is much more than that. It is a way of life. A life in death". What might sound as a litany, is actually related to one of the Holy Capitals, Vatican City, near which HOUR OF PENANCE was brought to life in 1999. Since its formation, the band released seven studio albums, and performed shows in Europe and North America, with the likes of Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, The Black Dahlia Murder, Devildriver, Misery Index, Nile and Krisiun. They also went through several line-up changes, that would surely have discouraged less dedicated bands. The present line-up consists of guitarist and longest serving member Giulio Moschini, singer and guitarist Paolo Pieri, bassist Marco Mastrobuono and drummer Davide Billia (Beheaded).
ONLINE
Website: http://www.hourofpenance.net/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hourofpenance
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HourofPenance
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/hourofpenanceofficial
Spotify: https://sptfy.com/20Wh
LINEUP
Giulio Moschini - Guitars / Backing Vocals
Marco Mastrobuono - Bass
Davide "the Bomber" Billia- Drums
Paolo Pieri - Vocals / Guitars
BIOGRAPHY
Like clockworks Hour of Penance is ready to release "Cast the first Stone" as followup of his last succesfull album Regicide. Releasing an album every 2 years , the band has been described by the fans and worldwide press as one of the most "productive" band in the genre, "Cast the first Stone" will mark album number 7 in the band's career.
Paolo Pieri, singer of the band, describes the concept of the new album: "Cast the first stone" revolves around the idea that the injustices suffered during the Crusades and Colonialism cannot justify indefinitely a chain of hate that propagandize the destruction of the West. I believe that the political situation in recent years has brought to light again a millennial conflict between West and East, and events like the terrorist attack at the Bataclan, where we only played a few months before the massacre, have influenced the lyrics on this record very much.
It does not matter who has thrown the first stone, but who first evolved his ideology to seek peace and coexistence instead of war to the bitter end.
In Europe, people have massacred each other for millennia but in the last 60 years, we were able to overcome differences and secular hatred that divided us, while the blind hatred of Islamic extremism is bringing entire geographic areas back to the darkest middle ages.
We find ourselves once again in front of a war between reason and religion, and unless we take a strong stand in defense of our Western values, we risk falling into chaos because of a weak and coward enemy stubbornly convinced of his senseless laws."
Giulio Moschini, lead guitar and songwriter adds: "Sonically speaking, this is the best sounding album we've ever recorded, we really worked hard on this, listening the album countless times before finally delivering the masters to Prosthetic Records...it was definitely worth the wait and we're 100% satisfied by the great work our bass player Marco Mastrobuono has done behind the mixing desk. We've literally spent weeks trying different miking-techniques, hardwares, preamps-trying to avoid plugins technologies as much as we could. We wanted our album to sound more dynamic and i think that we've achieved that 100%."
"Cast the first stone" was recorded at Kick Recording Studio , engineered , mixed and Mastered by Hour of Penance bass player Marco Mastrobuono.
Artwork by Gyula Havancsak
Since releasing 2012's acclaimed "Sedition", which Decibel lauded as a "hyper-blasting, inhuman, machine-like attack," HOUR OF PENANCE has annihilated fans worldwide with its fiery exuberance, playing well over 200 gigs alongside such acts as BEHEMOTH, SKELETONWITCH, CANNIBAL CORPSE, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, DEVILDRIVER, PSYCROPTIC, MISERY INDEX, DEICIDE, BELPHEGOR, NILE and KRISIUN.
DISCOGRAPHY
Cast The First Stone (2017)
Regicide (2014)
Sedition (2012)
Paradogma (2010)
The Vile Conception (2008)
Pageantry For Martyrs (2005)
Disturbance (2003)