“Choose your side… Heaven or Hell”, that’s how the saga of Dark Avenger began, when in the early 1993 Mario Linhares and Leonel Valdez gathered their aims to write another page of Brazilian heavy metal scene, carving out their stile from the pillars of power and traditional heavy metal with great influence of Manowar, Judas Priest, Helloween, Iron Maiden among others.
In February 94 a unique demo-tape is recorded containing four songs (Die Mermaid!, Ghost Divinity, Half Dead Eyes and Madelayne) and soon they conquered a large legion of fans around the country. The expert media and magazines praised the members of the band by their musical skills and performance: “… vocalist Mario Linhares can figure out as one of the best singer of the country and is greatly escorted by the fantastic guitars… the tracks in this demo-tape are faultless, out of this world!” (Rock Brigade Magazine, September 94).
Such reviews encouraged the band to record a studio work and in June 95 they recorded their debut and self titled album in Zen Studios. Following the path of the demo-tape, the album was a huge success in Brazil and in many other countries.
This fact was an open door to the band, which licensed the album abroad through some record labels such as Scarlet Records in Europe and Soundholic in Japan.
After two years touring throughout Brazil and some changes in the former line up, Dark Avenger signs with MEGAHARD Records in 2001 and releases TALES OF AVALON – THE TERROR, the fist part of its master piece: the play TALES OF AVALON.
Emerging by the hands of a renewed line up: Mario Linhares – vocals, Hugo Santiago and Marcus Valls – guitars, Gustavo “G Zus” Magalhães – bass, Acácio Carvalho– drums and Tomaz Galuf – keyboard, releases the Maxi Single X DARK YEARS to celebrate the 10th anniversary.
We could not find better words to describe X Dark Years as the ones bellow:
" DARK AVENGER (BRAZIL) X DARK YEARS (28:52) SCARLET RECORDS Reviewed by Toby for Vampire Magazine on January 3, 2004.
Prepare to be metalized!
It’s amazing what a band can do to you. What is it that makes you rock your brains out and gives you the maximum amount of relaxation. Yes indeed Dark Avenger did that all to me. Those Brasilian guys got their latest effort ready to release.
Thirty minutes of Heavy/Power metal alternated with a lot of classical movements. They managed to create an epic-album which is full of contrasts like heavy versus classical and up-paced versus mid/slow-paced. It’s not only that which is making "X Dark Years" a tremendous piece of art. When you’re talking about powermetal vocalists a lot of us are thinking about castrated men, I know it’s true but Mario, their vocalist does a lot more than iiiiaaaaaaachs… His power lays in his mid-tone voice and off course his high pitch voice. It’s all done with great enthusiasm and professionalism.
X Dark Years contains five songs, these songs are different from each other in style and sphere, it’s like reading a book. The first song ‘ Dark Avenger ’ starts with an eerie classical movement which explodes after almost two minutes into a pumpin’ staccato rhythm. Some of you know this song already from the album ‘The Dark Avenger ’ but this is a completely rearranged one. This is really a song which causes you chicken skin. Sensitive and explosive in once.
The next song ‘Caladvwch’ is a semi classical ballad which is completely guided with classical instruments like a violin and classical guitars. It’s a very melodic ballad.
It’s a little minus. ‘Utther Evil pt 1’ and ‘Utther evil pt 2’ are song three respectively song four of this MCD. Utther Evil pt 1 starts with a bombastic piece of piano which is showing the high-standard capabilities of Thomas Galuf. This is even better then the Manowar piano movements. After this classical - see it as an intro - piece of work part two starts it’s diesel engines. It reminds me to Zed Yago due to the guitars and the sometimes rasped intonations of Mario. They made a point with that.
The final song, ‘Unleash Hell’ is as predictable their most aggressive kind of song. Pounding drums and galloping riffs are raging through the song, fortunately it’s not all up-paced cause the mid-part is reserved for a solo. Unleash Hell can be described as a sort of Mike Murphy meets Timo Kotipelto song. I hope it wouldn’t take long Dark Avenger will release a full length album. X Dark Years will stay for sure in my CD player for the next coming weeks."
DON’T SATTLE FOR LESS THAN HEAVY METAL: DARK AVENGER
