In the mid-eighties, bands like Sortilège, Blasphème and Nightmare released true masterpieces of melodic metal and stormed the charts with them, be it in their native country France or in far away Japan. It is no incident that INVICTUS come from exactly the same region in northern France: Frederic Glo (vocals), Mikael Fitrzyk (guitar), Nicolas Acard (bass) and Raphael Leger (drums) have lined up to revive these great moments of French stainless steel.
In 1996, guitar player Mikael Fitrzyk formed INVICTUS (then, under the name QUARK7) - soon, he gathered other musicians around him. Even the first pieces, still influenced by Yngwie Malmsteen, UFO and Savatage, impressed with their elegant and original mixture of Progressive, Symphonic and Melodic Metal parts.
The music and the band carried a fair amount of aggression, too - everybody could witness that at the first INVICTUS live gigs, where fists flew regularly - the result of that: in many places, they weren´t allowed to play. But, hey, that's Rock'nRoll...
The guys weren´t bored, anyway, because after some line-up changes, QUARK7 produced their first album "Fly Away" which didn't get he attention it would have deserved. In 1999, they released "Once Upon A Time", again self-produced - and finally, this - together with a remarkable, multilingual website (12 languages!) - aroused massive interest of some underground labels. Outstanding reviews from all kinds of magazines from Norway, Japan, England, Germany, Sweden and Brazil finally lead to a distribution deal with Black Cat. In February 2002, they locked themselves up in the Melody Studios in Paris to record their third album "Black Heart" - with the help of producer Didier Chesneau and the two guest musicians A. Ribot (keyboards) and S. Grare (backing vocals). At the same time, they signed a deal with Limb Music Products.
On "Black Heart", INVICTUS present themselves audibly matured. The French have finally shaken off the state of being the diamond-in-the-raw, the eternal inside tip.
Source: http://www.concreteweb.be
