Angelus Apatrida

OFFICIAL BIO

Formed in March 2000, Angelus Apatrida have earned their reputation as giants of modern thrash metal. One of the few Spanish bands to enjoy sustained international recognition, the band burst onto the world stage with their 2006 debut Evil Unleashed and have never looked back.

Angelus Apatrida, a tightly knit four-piece, signed with Century Media Records in 2009 — an unexpected coup for a Spanish metal band, but one they grabbed with both hands. With the ever-consistent line-up of frontman/guitarist Guillermo Izquierdo, bassist Jose Izquierdo, drummer Víctor Valera and guitarist David Álvarez, Angelus Apatrida have kept steadily evolving, putting out a run of impressive, genre-redefining records that sit squarely within the realm of thrash metal, while never sounding like anyone else. They hit an unmistakable creative peak with the acclaimed Cabaret de la Guillotine in 2018, but as Guillermo explains, Angelus Apatrida are always looking for new ways to snap necks and crush skulls.

“It’s been a natural evolution: it’s been the same four people the whole way through, and we’ve already put out six albums and toured almost the entire world,” he says. “We just try to improve, learning from each other and learning from other bands too, bigger bands and smaller ones alike. We try to learn from everyone. But the way we write, the way we record, the way we do everything, has stayed the same. There’s just one goal, which is to always try to find the best sounds we can and make each new album better than the last. So far, I think we’ve managed that, in my humble opinion!”

Their plans to celebrate their 20th anniversary may have gone up in flames, but Angelus Apatrida spent their lockdown days putting together a new studio album, due out in early 2021. Originally planned as an EP, the self-titled effort grew out of intensely creative sessions in isolation and looks set to become a defining moment in Angelus Apatrida’s history. Utterly overwhelming and, at the same time, endlessly inventive, the Spaniards’ new music amounts to a wholesale upgrade for this unstoppable thrash machine.

“This album is going to surprise everyone, both old-school fans and new-school ones,” Guillermo says. “I think it’s going to be a chance to win over a lot of new fans! The first thing everyone will notice is that we’ve changed our tuning, for the first time in 20 years! We’ve dropped half a step. We’re in D standard now, and suddenly… man, it was like hearing Vulgar Display Of Power for the first time! [Laughs] We wrote a lot of new riffs and everything sounded really different in that tuning. I think there’s a power in the music we never had before.”

To back up that sense of power, Guillermo has also written some of his most furious, articulate lyrics to date. The new album, once again featuring artwork by Gyula Havancsák (Annihilator, Destruction, Stratovarius), burns with the frustrations and horrors of the world’s last 12 months, its lyrics digging into the frontman’s own feelings as he holds up a mirror to the chaos surrounding him.

“There’s a lot of rage we’ve been carrying these last few months, you know? Almost half the album was written before the pandemic. Then the pandemic hit and everything changed. Here in Spain things got really, really messed up… not just with the pandemic, but with the political situation here too. It’s at boiling point. So it’s bad news everywhere, politicians fighting each other, and meanwhile there are Nazis both in Parliament and on the streets. We’re living through some very hard times here. So all the lyrics are about these situations. But we’ve never been a political band. I don’t care who you vote for. We speak out against racism, fascism, homophobia and all that stuff, because that’s not about politics, it’s about human rights.”