Italian Technical Death Metal Masters AYDRA Drop “The Day Of The Wedding” Visualizer Off Upcoming Reissue of “Icon of Sin”!
- Jason Hesley
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
AYDRA, pioneers of Italian technical death metal, have released a visualizer video for the song “The Day Of The Wedding,” taken from the CD reissue of the legendary album “Icon of Sin” available from July 24th via Rude Awakening Records. The album comes in a fully remastered version, expanded with four exclusive bonus live tracks. It is also the first limited CD reissue since 1999.
Watch the visualizer video of “The Day Of The Wedding”: https://tinyurl.com/44fbpawd
Order “Icon of Sin”: https://rudeawakening-records.blogspot.com/p/distro.html
A milestone of late-'90s Italian death metal, “Icon of Sin” is AYDRA's first full-length, released in 1999 on Sound Machine Recordings after the “Psycho Pain Control” mini CD (1996, Dawn of Sadness). Composed between 1995 and 1997 and recorded in 1998 by David Lenci, the album marks the technical maturity of the band from Italy's Marche region and their full entry into the canon of Italian death metal.
Their stated influences - Death, Cynic, Atheist, Pestilence - are the starting point for a songwriting style that blends extreme technicality, melody and storytelling: ten tracks where every passage is calculated, but the punch always lands. “We were looking for music that was violent but considered, intricate yet keeping the essential structure of a song”, says Mauro Pacetti.
On release, the album earned exceptional reviews. Flash, one of Italy's leading metal magazines at the time, featured it in the New Comer column with a perfect 100/100 score, calling it “a true masterpiece of the genre”, praising “a songwriting ability and technical level that would put most bands currently around the world to shame”, comparing the power of the songs to “stuff we hadn't heard since the days of Atheist themselves”. Years later Metal Archives would define it “one of the mandatory opuses from the Italian metal scene” (91%). The CD has been reissued in Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia and Panama.
On July 24th we will have the definitive edition: after the vinyl reissue released by Rude Awakening Records in 2024, the album returns remastered by Marco Bianchella at White Rock Studios and expanded with four exclusive bonus live tracks recorded by the current line-up at 2025 shows - one song from each album of the band's discography: “Carnage” (from “Psycho Pain Control”), “Icon of Sin” (title-track), “Hyperlogical Non-sense”, and “Forever Hide” (from “Leave to Nowhere”). A full summary of thirty years of career.
The 2026 edition comes as a CD jewel case with a 12-page booklet. Cover artwork and background illustrations are by Eugenio Morganti, sculptor. Booklet layout and logo are by Mauro Pacetti, the band's frontman; current line-up photos by Marco Priori.
The album is dedicated - among others - to David Lenci, no longer with us, who originally recorded it in 1998 at Sound Machine Recording: this edition is also a tribute to him.
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