BiografieOn the 8th of September – a moment we’ve all been waiting for – the romantic-barbaric power metal band VIRGIN STEELE will be laying another cornerstone with their eleventh studio album on the 25th anniversary of their existence. And David DeFeis is again responsible for composition, arrangements and production.



VIRGIN STEELE’s success story began in New York in 1981 when the dedicated power-mental band with classical music influences takes three weeks to put together their pocket-money-financed demo album in the tiny Studio 3973. David DeFeis is the name of the mastermind behind the band; he likes to describe heavy metal as being “romantic, symphonic,
expressionistic barbaric metal.” He takes the bull by the horns and relentlessly sends Virgin Steele I to reporters and labels and sells copies to concert-goers and shop owners from out of the trunk of his car. The first two albums they produce themselves, but soon everybody wants to know about the ambitious band and twelve months later VIRGIN STEELE gets
their first label deal with Music For Nations.
The turning point comes with the third LP, Noble Savage (1986), which still applies as a cornerstone in this genre – the way classic and metal, bombast and melody, but also hardness and an jab of progressive is mixed is simply state of the art. This album marks a turning point in the band’s history; guitarist Jack Starr has just left the band and is replaced by Edward Pursino who also composes and still contributes to VIRGIN STEELE’s success today.



The next album, Age Of Consent (1987) obviously sells better but due to diverse management/label conflicts the band has to put up with a long break of several years. Eventually VIRGIN STEELE is put under contract with T&T and Life Among The Ruins (1993) is released. Masterpieces like The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell Part I (1994) and Part II (1995) follow to reinforce the band’s reputation as being one of the best in their genre. The latter album sells extraordinarily well in Europe and even places 5th on the Japanese metal charts.



And on top of that David DeFeis even composes and brings two full-on metal-operas on stage: Klytaimnestra oder der Fluch der Atriden (based on the two VIRGIN STEELE albums The House Of Atreus – Acts I & II) as well as Die Rebellen, the epic that follows shortly thereafter, premieres with huge success in Germany, is extravagantly staged and taken on tour. In this sense David DeFeis combines classical subject matter and true power metal like no other before him. Twenty-five years after the founding of the band in the Big Apple, the eleventh epic is ready to present: Visions Of Eden – The Lilith Project – A Barbaric Romantic Movie Of The Mind. Contrary to what the title implies, it promises no utopian sagas, even though the orchestration again shows lavish full-metallic creativity and the band re-demonstrates its compositional strength.



The maestro DeFeis expresses the album’s content and concept as such:

“The Album Visions Of Eden is not about happiness, peace, contentment or eternal tranquility, but describe a sinister scenario full of destruction and pugnacious chaos. It is a work based on the destruction of Paganism, Gnosticism and the desecration and eradication of the Goddess Principle that once dwelled so freely within divinity. A massive blow was struck against these early beliefs, by first, the rise of the "Father-God" principle, and second by the development of the "organized" religions. The main character in Visions Of Eden is Lilith, Adam’s first woman and a kind of female Prometheus whose
origins can be found in old Sumerian myths. It has nothing to do with biblical Adam and Eve, snake, fig leaf and rib propaganda. I also see strong references to the modern society in which we live in today.



Lilith, strong and independent, does not want to submit to Adam’s control, the patriarchy, and Adam fails to enter into a fruitful, equal relationship to this woman who personifies the divine life-force. Adam always wants to be “on top” – sexually and non-sexually – and the route of sorrow following the eleven songs of Visions Of Eden begins.”

A conflict that still hasn’t been settled and that David DeFeis here musically and controversially illustrates in a truly fabulous way applying VIRGIN STEELE’s symbolic-actual flaming sword of justice.
Quelle: http://www.musikvertrieb.ch/mvb2b/en/biography.html?id=43413Discografie1982 - Virgin Steele

1983 - Guardians Of The Flame

1985 - Noble Savage

1988 - Age Of Consent

1993 - Life Among the Ruins

1994 - The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell Part I

1995 - The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell Part II

1998 - Invictus

1999 - The House Of Atreus Act I

2000 - The House Of Atreus Act II

2006 - Visions Of Eden

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