EPK – Liva – Ecce Mundus (2023)
Publicist – Jon Asher – jon[@]ashermediarelations[.]com
“Ecce Mundus is more grandiose and developed orchestrations, more heaviness in the guitar parts, a more lyrical experience with our power vocal duo and a feeling to be in another world or another dimension.” – Liva
For fans of Therion, Nightwish, Leaves’Eyes, Epica, Cradle of Filth
Band: Liva
Album Title: Ecce Mundus
Release Date: CD – November 17, 2023 – Digital January 12, 2024
Label: Stoke Records (Independent)
Distribution: Outside Music (Canada), Orchard (US)
Livaband.com | Facebook.com/www.livaband | Instagram.com/livametalband | Youtube
Livametalband.bandcamp.com | Spotify | Apple Music
“There are fewer rules in metal nowadays, and fellow Francophones Liva have taken the ones that remain and stomped them to dust. The mix is raw and yet warm. The hook finds you it won’t let go. 8/10” – Brave Words (Ecce Mundus)
-« (…) le compromis parfait entre puissance et mélodie. Un voyage au travers de sonorités lointaines et saisissantes. Le groupe a apporté un soin particulier à créer une atmosphère enivrante. Tout simplement splendide, transcendé. Il est évident que Liva est un groupe au potentiel énorme. Sublime ! » 9/10, Rock Hard (France) (Ecce Mundus)
”This is a fantastic album. Highly recommended.” Powerplay Magazine (Ecce Mundus)
[Download Album Cover | Download Album Lyrics]
Band: Liva
Album Title: Ecce Mundus
Release Date: CD – November 17, 2023 – Digital January 12, 2024
Label: Stoke Records (Independent)
Distribution: Outside Music (Canada), Orchard (US)
Track Listing:
1. De avaritia et luxuria mundi – (9:30)
2. Materiae summa – (6 :33)
3. Ecce mundus demundatur – (5 :06)
4. Sunt – (3 :34)
5. Samson & Dalila I – (5 :29)
6. Samson & Dalila II – (5 :19)
7. Obscura – (7 :31)
8. O Roma nobilis – (6 :57)
9. Silence – (6 :04)
Album Length: 55:51
Album Recording Credits:
• All songs performed by: Liva
• All songs written by: Pier Carlo Liva
• Produced by: Pier Carlo Liva
• Mixed by: Pier Carlo Liva
• Mastered by: Maxime Lacroix, Pier Carlo Liva
• Album Artwork by: Christophe Viau
• Member of SOCAN
• Music is Canadian Content (MAPL)
Album and Live Band Line Up:
Pier Carlo Liva (tenor vocal, death vocal, guitars, electronics)
Nadine Guertin (soprano vocal)
Martin Tremblay (bass)
Claude Lacroix (drums)
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About The Album artwork:
I wanted a mix between ancient Rome and the story of Samson & Dalila. These are the two most important ideas that I had when it came to work with the visual artist. It was a great working team because I think it’s one of the most difficult part of an album.
About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY) :
– Extensive sonic explorations propel the group’s characteristic blend of power metal and classical music. Grand and elaborate orchestrations further open up this instrumental universe. With Ecce mundus, launched in the fall of 2023, Liva returns to Latin texts, here medieval texts on themes from Antiquity and other ones, timeless. Ecce mundus talks about the glory of Rome, the story of Samson and Dalila, and about human flaws such as greed, corruption, and hypocrisy, the same from ancient times to the present day! All this is propelled by a majestic orchestral music.
Track by Track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY) :
1- De avaritia et luxuria mundi : this is the longest song of all the album.
Songs, with 9 minutes 30 seconds. All the ability of the band is in this song. I gave a lot of space to our new soprano Nadine to improvise.
The song is about the search of power, linked to human greed, and an insatiable thirst. As with a tumor, the more it swells, the more violently the disease grows.
2- Materiae summa: for this one, the riffs of the intro, the verse, and the chorus are very heavy but in three different ways for each section. I wanted a half-beat song with a double bass drum feel in it. I’m very proud of it.
The text says : Nothing happens without a cause; everything that is, is the consequence of what was and the cause of what it will be.
3- Ecce mundus demundatur : this is my power ballad but not like many bands used to do. I wanted it with sensuality and a progressive style of intensity.
The text says : The world is nothing but filth, the only thing it abounds in is vices galore.
4- Sunt : this my power metal song of the album. This song was created in one night! I love the final section. It talks about corruption, dishonest lawyers and hypocrite people.
5- Samson & Dalila I : this is the « flagship » song of the album. This song has all elements that are to be found in the Liva style.
It’s about the old story of Samson & Dalila. To avenge her people, Dalila cuts off the hair of Samson, thus weakening him.
6- Samson & Dalila II :
With the same story of Samson & Dalila, I wanted to have a Hard Rock feel to sing over. I’m very proud of what I found for Nadine’s chorus and the how I use all the register of my voice.
7- Obscura :
I wanted to use a “galop” kind of riff. This was an old idea that I worked very much to build the structure. The lead section is one of my favourite of the album.
The text is about happiness, suggestion to making up for what it lacks in length with its intensity—the amount in which it impacts an individual is long-lasting, even if happiness itself is not.
😯 Roma nobilis : this is the heaviest song that I have ever written. It talks about the glory of Rome:
Queen of the earth, O thou Rome of nobility, Thou the most excellent City of cities,
Red with the rubrical blood of the Martyrs, White with the Virginal garments and lilies:
Thee we hail as we come to thy portal Guard us, govern us, City immortal!
9-Silence: this one was my toughest song to build. It took me a lot of time to build that song with a mix of very good old ideas. But it’s only last year that a was inspired to finish it. The leads section of one of my best ever.
The text: Even when man is gone and human sound ceases, the green ruins, desolate walls and antique palaces continue to exist with the solidity of their ‘silence’ – or rather the subtle sound and paralleled peace of nature.
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STORY ANGLES / FUN FACTS ABOUT THE BAND:
– In 2005, after a soundcheck at the Club Soda in Montréal, we were walking on the sidewalk, heading for dinner and suddenly, a guy threw himself at my feet, on his knees, saying “thank you for saving the future of metal in Québec!”
-In 2009, we played in Québec City and a band with whom we were sharing the stage did not want to allow us to use their gear for the shows’ needs, though bands often share their stuff for time saving purposes. Their attitude surprised us. The day after, we were playing in another city so we stayed in a hotel. When it was time to go to bed, our bassman says « I forgot my toothbrush » so I said, in the same fashion as the other band’s the night before “I don’t share my gear!”
L-R – Martin Tremblay – Bass, Nadine Guertin – Soprano, Pier Carlo Liva – Death Vocals, Tenor Vocal, Guitars, Electronics, Claude Lacroix – Drums
Photo credit: Karine Couillard
As a symphonic power metal opera band, Liva has been one of Canada’s pioneers of blending classical music and metal music since 1997.
Liva’s four members hail from Sherbrooke and Montréal are Nadine Guertin (soprano), Pier Carlo Liva (death and tenor voices, guitars, electronics), Martin Tremblay (bass) and Claude Lacroix (drums).
Liva came together as a band in Sherbrooke, Québec (Canada) in 1997 and recorded its eponymous four-track demo in 2001. These pieces also appeared on the group’s first album, Requiem (2002). This heavy metal version of a requiem in Latin was a hit with many music lovers. Then, in the spring of 2007, Liva released its second album,
De Insulis, putting music to the Latin texts of French poet and theologian Alain de Lille, said De Insulis (12th century). In the fall of 2013, Liva’s long-awaited third album, Human abstract, is launched with texts in Shakespeare’s language.
Since the beginning, Liva has shown their talent when playing opening acts for international bands such as Voivod, Gorguts, Nightwish, Kataklysm, Therion and Leaves Eyes/Kamelot, to name a few. Liva also featured in a show dedicated to the future of metal music in the province of Québec, at the “Weekend Extreme” held in 2002.
Liva has been the subject of various reports and articles, one among others in the fall of 2001 on the television program Bande-à-part on ARTV, Radio-Canada’s specialized art channel. Then, on March 8, 2002, Liva performed with a chamber orchestra consisting of 13 musicians and chorus members during a radio concert that was recorded in front of a live audience for Bande-à-part and broadcast in April of 2002. This memorable event gave the audience a taste of the band’s wide-ranging and innovative musical talent.
On March 9, 2003, the quartet won the award entitled “MIMI de l’artiste le plus avant- gardiste,” that is given to the artist that “cuts the most radically with preconceived and known slots: language, musical genre, artistic pursuits.” The members of the band received this prize “because they have the capacity to harmonize classical music with metal.” This award acknowledged not only the musicians’ will to explore the unexplored, but also their determination to overcome the difficulties of such an audacious fusion.
Discography:
2023 – Ecce mundus – LP
2013 – Human Abstract – LP
2007 – De Insulis –LP
2002 – Requiem – LP
2000 – Liva – EP
1997 – Demo
Shared Stage with: Voivod, Gorguts, Nightwish, Kataklysm, Therion, Leaves Eyes/Kamelot, Kalmah, Kataklysm, Blackguard, Vrylnia, Uriel, War Call, Sanguine Glacialis, Forgotten Tales, etc.
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