Mortifer

Mortifer was formed in July ..1988.. in Kostroma (Russia) by Sergey Novikov (guitar & vocals) and his pal Anatoly Chebotarj (drums). Two years earlier, they used to appear at parties in a local Medical College performing pop songs and even covers of AC/DC and Alice Cooper. It was rather venturesome to play such “dangerous” stuff in those times... The risk was related to anti-Western policy of the former USSR. After Sergey’s return from military service, the guys decided to form a band to play exceptionally heavy kind of music. Within a month the band's line-up was completed. Sergey’s College classmate Alexander Kamenschikov joined on bass. On the first demo tape there was Valeriy Mukhin as a lead guitar player, but he has abandoned the band in half a year, having preferred to play in restaurants and take care of his family. At that time the band name was Knyaz Serebryanny (The Silver Knight). They were playing mostly covers of Savatage, Dio, Loudness, Ozzy, Saxon, etc., but also had started writing their own material in a hard'n'heavy vein. The lyrics were all in Russian then. It wasn’t until ..1991.. when they have switched over to English lyrics and started to play a radical (for those times) style - aggressive thrash metal. The new material was recorded as a demo in ..1992.., but later on it was re-recorded and released as their debut album "Euthanasia" in ..1993.. by BIZ Enterprises (Death City Records). Release of such kind of music was considered a breakthrough event at that period. But having succumbed to the demand of music market, BIZ Enterprises (at that time BIZ became the Polygram branch in Russia) soon has re-orientated to pop field and has abrogated all contracts with hard rock bands.