After going through a few unstable line-ups, the founding members Filipe Gonçalves (vocals and guitar) and João Costa (drums) managed to get Divine Lust for the first time on stage at the May 29th of 1998, in a year when the group began to gather some experience on that field.
About one year later, the demo-cd “Terceiro Pecado” (Third Sin = Lust) was released. It was responsible for the spreading of the band’s name throughout the Portuguese metal scene. The band started to be invited to some more notorious stages, such as Paradise Garage, Incrível Almadense, Armazéns Abel Pereira da Fonseca (Feira Mix), Marquês Rock Club or Ritz Club.
Eventually, Divine Lust started to see their efforts recognized by the Press, calling them a group “owning a very unique sonority in our country (a crossing between Gothic Doom and traditional Heavy Metal)” (in “Blitz” newspaper). “Loud!” magazine considered that “a possible definition for the sound they make could be My Dying Bride playing Heavy Metal”.
Encouraged by the good reactions amongst the critics and the public, believers of what they had in hands, the Lisbon based group headed into their first full-length album. Before that, a new bass player (Jorge Fonte) joined Filipe and João (who also recorded the keyboard parts), completing the trio responsible for the recordings.
2001 was a studio-working year. Even so, Divine Lust had the honour to play as support act for Anathema concerts in Portugal (Paradise Garage – Lisbon and Hard Club – Porto). Meanwhile, the band line-up was completed and, a few months later, it was time to share stage with My Dying Bride, in the sold-out Lisbon show.
2002 is marked as the year of the long-awaited debut “Divine Lust”, a 10-track Melancholic Melodic Metal album, self-released by the band. And so a new chapter began…
A video-clip from the track “Morrigan” (also included on the CD) has been played in several TV channels and the band appeared as guest on TV Shows at SIC Radical and NTV. The feed-back on the album is being quite remarkable worldwide. Thus, Divine Lust is now looking for a record label and distribution partners.
“Divine Lust's debut is a disc that keeps getting better every time you listen to it, definitely the best act to come out of the Portuguese scene so far.” GL-Productions Webzine (Sweden)
”It's not exactly doom metal... definitely not quite hard rock... and is surely not progressive rock/metal. It is, however, a skillful blend of all those genres with a dash of their own secret ingredient thrown in for good measure.” Starvox Webzine (U.S.A.)
”Divine Lust will be, on a short term, the next big thing of national Metal, the worthy successors of Moonspell.” Massacre Magazine nº 1 (Portugal)
Source: http://www.divinelust.com