Quo Vadis is a technical melodic death metal band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, formed in 1992 by Bart Frydrychowicz, Yanic Bercier, and Arie Itman and is named after the novel by Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz. Since its inception, the band has released three studio albums, one compilation album, one demo, one live DVD, one live album and two videos.
Quo Vadis was formed in 1992 by guitarists and vocalists Bart Frydrychowicz and Arie Itman and drummer Yanic Bercier. Initially the band's music consisted of Metallica and Megadeth covers. However, over time, the band began to write originals and incorporate them into their live shows.
By 1995, the band had written several originals and wanted to record a demo. Bassist Remy Beauchamp was recruited as a permanent member after the band tried out 17 others and soprano vocalist Sebrina Lipari performed on certain songs live. The Quo Vadis Demo was released on cassette on March 21, 1995 through VomiT Productions and helped the band establish themselves in the Montreal metal community.
In early 1996, Quo Vadis headed back into the studio and recorded their debut album with Pierre Rémillard, who had previously worked with Cryptopsy, as producer. On April 10, 1996, Forever... was released and was received favorably by both fans and critics, leading Earth AD Records in Germany and Immortal Records in Poland to sign licensing deals with Quo Vadis.
Bart said of the album, "We recorded a demo which was released as an EP on cassette last year. The reaction was very positive. We were still searching for direction at that time, experimenting with keyboards and femme vox. The music is much more focused now as we have found our sound. Forever... is much more aggressive then the EP was, it's much more melodic and intricate. That may sound like a contradiction but that is the case. I think we had more to say as musicians this time in the studio as well. Our objective was to keep the aggression and not to loose our edge. I think we captured that quite well, at the same time setting free our artistic side. It's pretty weird. You have to listen to both to really understand."
Although the album was released on November 4, 2004, Defiant Imagination was written much earlier. By 2002, the song structures had been finalized and the drums were recorded in September 2002, and the bass in August 2003 at Wildsound Studios with Pierre Rémillard as the sound engineer. Cellos were recorded in October 2003 by POJPOWJ. The guitars were recorded sporadically between September 2002 and January 2004 and the choir and the vocals were recorded in January 2004. By May 2004, the entire album had been mixed by Jim Morris and mastered by Bernard Belley between June and September 2004.
In 2005, Defiant Indoctrination, a triple DVD documenting a concert in Montreal on 7 May 2005 was released. Produced by Bart and Roxy, the first two DVDs featured the concert, in which Defiant Imagination was performed in its entirety along with various other tracks from previous albums, and the third DVD contained drum footage of the entire show, focusing entirely on Yanic Bercier. The mix was handled by Jean-Francois Dagenais (Kataklysm, Misery Index) and Bart. Several guest musicians were featured on the DVD including the famous Quebec cellist Claude Lamothe, Alex Auburn of Cryptopsy fame, bassist Dominique "Forest" Lapointe of Augury/Atheretic/Negativa, and a classical choir and violinist.
After the 6 September show, with Stéphane, Yanic and Forest now gone and Bart unable to walk, rumors began to surface on the internet about Quo Vadis being disbanded entirely. However, on 15 September Bart posted a video on YouTube confirming the departures and dismissing the rumors about the break-up, adding that "a new line-up is in place and we actually have some shows scheduled in October and November... I have been sitting on literally two albums worth of material for the past two years that we were not able to finish for various reasons."
This changed line-up consisted of Patrice Hamelin (of Martyr) as drummer, Trevor Birnie (of Damascus & Annex Theory) as vocalist and Roxanne Constantin (of Negativa) as bassist and keyboardist. A rough mix of a new track, "Equilibrium", was released on the band's Myspace page on 25 October 2008. In late 2009, Trevor Birnie left the band's line-up and was replaced with Matthew Sweeney in early 2010 on vocals.
Since then, Bart has confirmed that work is under way on the new Quo Vadis album, tentatively titled But Who Prays for Satan?, expected to be released in 2011 and accompanied by a tour.
