Ephel Duath are Dunzo

Say it ain’t so! Just a year after releasing their crowning achievement, the stunningly gorgeous Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness (stream here), Ephel Duath are calling it quits.

A farewell message that band mastermind Davide Tiso posted on the band’s Facebook page is very cryptic and doesn’t paint a clear picture of exactly why Tiso decided to shut the band down — first he says he’s uncomfortable with the idea of sharing music that’s so deeply personal, then he contradicts that sentiment by lamenting that the band’s music never reached a larger audience — but if I had to make an approximate distillation of his message, basically it just sounds like he’s grown tired of doing it after 16 years. Which is totally understandable.

Tiso announced the band’s break-up almost a week ago, but it escaped the notice of the Metalwebs until Toilet ov Hell picked it up yesterday. Here’s his message in full:

Today I decided that it’s time to put Ephel Duath to rest.
This beautiful beast has been my life companion for a very long time, I cannot see it struggling any longer and I decided to kill it myself. This post is a way to make peace with the idea itself and, I guess, a way to keep you part of this.
For many years I felt conflicted with the idea of sharing Ephel Duath’s music with its small public, now it’s time to let go.
Ephel Duath changed shape and color many times, crossing different genres and musical styles, toward the end though, it started looking too much like me and I didn’t feel like giving it to you any longer. This is the reason why this has to end, because this band mattered so much to me that I didn’t get any joy in letting it be heard and dissected by you any longer.
As I’ve never really found a comfortable place for myself in this society, my music has always experienced the same problem. Ephel Duath never quite reached a large public and it never really exploited its potential. I suffered for that but what I know is that I’ve tried my very best to make this band work and I stand behind every record we released.
When I started Ephel Duath I was young, naive and tremendously ambitious. Now I’m 16 years older, and still naive enough to think that songs have their own souls, I just poured too much of my own in them, and it has been brutal to let them go. A part of me was let go. A big chunk. In the end, I’m not sure it was worth it.
I’ve a gift that I cherish deeply, I can talk through my guitar. It’s easy for me to distill my feelings through riffs and everything I say that way has more weight and impact than my own words. In order to keep honoring that in the future, Ephel Duath needs to die today and so it will be.

Thanks for reading,
I could do a long list of thanks but I choose not, now it’s my time to be ungrateful.
Davide Tiso

This sucks. I felt like Ephel Duath’s latest work was their best material ever, and it seemed as if the metal world at large was finally starting to take notice. But maybe that’s for the best — way to go out on top.

This isn’t the end of Tiso, though: he and Ephel Duath frontwoman Karyn Crisis (also his wife!) are keeping busy with their new Gospel of the Witches project. Hopefully we’ll get an update on that soon.