Cryptic Wintermoon was founded 1993 with former members of the band BLACK PROPHECIES. This first formation consisted of the following Upper Franconians: Bernd Seeberger (vocals/keyboards), Larsen Beattie (guitars), Christian Reichel (bass guitar) and Marek Karakasevic (drums). With this formation CRYPTIC WINTERMOON played a few concerts around Hof.
At the end of 1994 Bernd Seeberger decided to leave the band because of personal reasons. The band found after a short time with Ronny Dörfler a compensation for Bernd. Ronny was already known in the Münchberg Metal Circle as Frontman of the Thrash Metal Band TERRIBLE SOMNIUM. Later drummer Marek had been replaced with the former TERRIBLE SOMNIUM guitar player Alexander Pöhlmann. With this line-up the band recorded in August 1995 the demo-tape "Voyage dans la lune", wich was mainly sold in the underground circle. As Ronny decided to give up playing keyboards to concentrate more on his part as singer Andrea Walter came for playing the keys.
Musicial and personal differences between Christian Reichel and the rest of the band almost lead to the end of CRYPTIC WINTERMOON. So the split was unavoidable in summer of 1996. Christian Ender took upon the part of the bass and background vocals.
A second guitar player, Jochen Kressin, completed the line up. In March 1997 the MiniCD was recorded in the Frost Studios in Sauerhof. Half a year later in October the MiniCD was published without a label. In the same month Jochen decided to study and was no longer possible to play at CRYPTIC WINTERMOON. He was replaced by Michael Schürger (Nocon).
In this formation the band played a lot of concerts in Germany with bands like DESASTER, NIGHT IN GALES, PURGATORY, AGATHODAIMON, ANCIENT RITES, IMPENDING DOOM, ... and managed to make a name in the underground as a Black/Death Metal band. In autumn 1998 CRYPTIC WINTERMOON released a Split-EP with the band LORD ASTAROTH, containing "Shadowland" (re-recorded) and "Beyond the night". The Split-EP is published by PERVERTED TASTE RECORDS.
Because no label was pleased to take CRYPTIC WINTERMOON under contract, a Promotape with four songs was recorded. After a long period of time ARS METALLI offered an contract in December 1998. And so the recordings for the longplayer "The age of Cataclysm" were started in May 1999 in the famous Frost Studios which had developped into a professional studio. In November the 48-track recording was published. Eleven songs of 60 minutes got best results in Rock Hard (9 of 10), Heavy or what (10 of 12), ... . After the recordings Christian Ender decided to give up active music and Alexander Pöhlmann had to give up because of his eardrum. Both were replaced by Jason(bass) and Goatie known from VIOLATION. A few concerts have been played until now in this formation.
After long during differences with their label CRYPTIC WINTERMOON decided to leave ARS METALLI. They are working on their new album and are searching for a new publisher.
