Bes Trefoil - guitars, vocals
(also bass, drums and synth in recording). Band's mastermind.
In Medievil since 1998.
Bands/projects: BARRACUDA, Disgod, Ad Astra.
Thorngrim - bass (live).
In Medievil since 07.2006.
Bands/projects: Infestum, and solo project.
Nil Mast - guitar (live).
In Medievil since 11.2008.
2009 Atruta (Full-length, released in June '2009 by Crash Music Inc. for USA under the license of Griffin Music. CD-Extra - music + 2 video clips. Exlusive distribution by EMI.)
2006 Atruta (Full-length, released by Griffin Music in April '2007, CD-Extra with videos "Blood Comes Black" and "In Gloom And Spikes")
2005 Across The Gloomy Realm (Shortened version of the album, split with Urskumug, released by Beverina / Kulturwerk, Digipack CD-Extra with video "K Chertjam! / To Hell")
Medievil is a conceptual psychedelic industrialized black metal band located in Minsk, Belarus. In studio work Medievil is practically a "one-man-band", cause all the music is composed, arranged and recorded by Bes Trefoil, band's "master mind" and "front man". But in live performances Medievil consists of several musicians. The band also uses industrialized backing tracks and atmospheric video stream (which was filmed specially for live shows).
Turning back to the band concept, Medievil is not a usual black metal band with hackneyed ideology. The ideas embodied in music are covering wide spectrum of "dark", "weird", "non-natural" and "nocturnal" aspects of the world, sometimes considering different points of view as various sides of a single whole.
In a few words, themes touched upon by Medievil, are (but not only) dark impressionism, misanthropy, mysticism, poisonous sarcasm, inner philosophy and existential questions.
The band originates from Belarus - a country in Eastern Europe with more than 1600-year history, rich cultural past and strange post-totalitarian present, a country that suffered countless wars and the Chernobyl disaster. A country of a thousand lakes, forests and swamplands. Belarus is an ex-USSR republic on geopolitical border between NATO and Russia, a mixture of Western-Slavic and Baltic cultures, capitalism and post-Soviet state ideology. These factors substantially influenced the band's music. Thus the sounding of Medievil has it's own features, which definitely distinguish it from other bands. Someone may find Medievil music radioactive like Chernobyl.
The band members do not pretend to be "true evil" or some other kind of such immature image. Our position is acceptance and development of our different (sometimes even opposite) sides, with no dependence on trend and underground fashion.
Among with music recording Medievil emphasizes the meaning of video art, which is seen from it's videos.
Medievil takes the liberty of extending the borders of black metal. This concerns not only the ideas, but the musical forms also. There are admixtures of industrial, ambient, death and thrash metal. The main thing is to keep the specific atmosphere and mood. The substance is principal, but not the form.
:: Bio ::
Medievil was founded in 1998 by Bes Trefoil and Bretors in Minsk, Belarus. First EP "Black Rat's Liturgy" was recorded in 2000. The music was different from nowadays' Medievil - that was an interesting blend of black, death and melodic metal with fantasy lyrics. On that album Bes played drums and Bretors composed music with the participation of other musicians. The recording quality was very raw. It was hard enough to practice the UG music in Belarus in that time. "Black Rat's Liturgy" made the band known on Belarusian metal stage. Soon after that the line-up changed. Bretors leaved and Bes Trefoil took up lyrics, all guitars and vocals. Music turned to more heavy black metal with some gloomy melodic influences.
In winter '2002 the single “Magil'ny Son” (“The Grave Dream”) was recorded as a promo for the forthcoming album. In summer '2002 Medievil recorded it's second album, “Across The Gloomy Realm” (full-length), in Bes’ studio "Pyre Rex". Bes himself recorded all the music material, except for some bass lines, performed by Xvost. "Across The Gloomy Realm" made Medievil more respected among black metal fans not only in Belarus, but in bordering countries also.
In 2003 Medievil finished their first video “K Chertjam! / To Hell!”. Although the video was introduced on the "1st National TV Channel", it was distributed mainly via Internet and on CD's, due to the UG format of music. This misanthropic song with lyrics in Russian became the band's "visiting card" and main hit for that period. And the audience still joins in singing "K Chertjam!" on Medievil live shows. In 2005 Beverina (Latvia) and Kulturwerk (Germany) released the shortened version of "Across The Gloomy Realm" (split with Urskumug). The CD included video "K Chertjam!" as a bonus (Digipack CD-Extra).
From the autumn '2003 Medievil started work on conceptual album “Atruta” (meaning "poison" in Belarusian) - a new stage of the band development. The music got heavy and mesmerizing black. This is some kind of another reality, which depicts the atmosphere of cold Belarusian autumn, soaked with swampland' feeling of stagnation, decay and industrial disintegration. The theme of poison ("Atruta") is binding all the tracks on this album. Spreading around as bile, “Atruta” is meant to be an embodiment of evolutionary black art.
“Blood Comes Black” (the first song from "Atruta") was chosen to be the second music video, and simultaneously the video material was filmed for the song, November being the best time for that - cold dreary autumn, twilight, rotting old forest. This video was done at high creative and professional level. Later on the video "In Gloom And Spikes" was filmed on one of Medievil live shows and then put together with studio record.
In autumn '2004 Bes Trefoil began recording “Atruta” in his studio "Pyre Rex". Just as on the previous album, he performed all the music himself, except for the bass lines for “Blood Comes Black” and “In Gloom And Spikes” (performed by Aldagil). In August '2005 Bes recorded drums in Zaglada studio, Kyiv. As a result, by the beginning of 2006 “Atruta” was ready. In April '2007 "Atruta" was released by Ukrainian label "Griffin Music". The CD included video "Blood Comes Black" and "In Gloom And Spikes" as a bonus (CD-Extra).
