Biography
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Years Active
1996 – present (28 years)
Yyrkoon, pronounced 'EAR koon' is a death metal band which was formed in 1995 in Amiens, Picardy, France by four members : Stéphane Souteyrand (guitar & keyboards, Aborted), Laurent Harrouart (drums), Paul Banas (vocals & guitar) and Sébastien Caron (bass guitar). They directly started to play and compose their own kind of music which is a mixture between their influences and gave us a very personal Black/Heavy metal . The main thematics of the band are occultism, horror/fantastic and the band member's own philosophy.
One year later (1996), Yyrkoon decided to record the first demo tape in autoproduction : "Oath, Obscure, Occult…", it contains 5 songs of their personal metal. They added different sounds textures to their style like a female voice, violin and flute. This tape allowed the band to be welcome in the underground, to find date to play live with other bands and to trade demos with their french neighbourings.
The demo was sent to different french labels and one was interested to do something with Yyrkoon : Velvet Music International (Blut Aus Nord, Wallachia, Mundanus Imperium, …) purposed to the band a deal for their first full lenght album. The band accepted the term and prepared the composition of their first album. The motivation at this time seems to be different for each members and a little conflict leads the line-up to change. This is done during the recording of this album, Paul Banas (the singer) & Sébastien Caron (bass guitar) decided to leave the band and new members joined Yyrkoon : Jérôme Barouin (session guitar) & Kristofer Laurent (bass guitar). Stéphane Souteyrand decided to sing and thought that it would be preferable to find a keyboard player for shows. Stéphane asked Jeff Gautier, an old friend, to join them to ensure Yyrkoon's keyboard parts for the shows and the studios. After this change of line-up, the band was ready to re cord the first album "Oniric Transition" in 1998 at the Walnut Groove studio in Amiens (France). The style is the same as the demo but is more mature and technic. Stéphane introduced clean vocals on chorus what personalises more the music. Magazines usually reviewed this album as Dark Metal because of the diverse influences and songs variety ; heavy solos, atmospheric parts, agressive death metal riffs and raw black metal cadences !! the whole well digested through this album. With this, Yyrkoon multiplied contacts and shows. Various songs on different CD compilations (Encyclopedia Pestilencia -France-, Asgaarden -Norge-…).
One year passed, and no news from VMI… Yyrkoon fastly understood that they would have to find a new deal with another label to work with on their second album. During this time, Jérôme Barouin (guitar session on the first album) left the band to consacrate himself to his project.
In 2000, Yyrkoon recorded a new 2 song promo-CD called "Forgotten Past" in the veins of "Oniric Transition" to contact labels. This was recorded in the same studio in Amiens by Axel Wursthorn (member of Carnival In Coal). Thematics stayed unchanged, and Stéphane (vocals & guitar) composed the music and also wrote the lyrics.
The band stayed around 7/8 months without a second guitarist for their shows. After a difficult search, they met François Falempin (guitarist) and tried him out for a new line-up. But the line-up problems were not over. Yyrkoon decided to fire Kristofer Laurent (bass guitar) after a little altercation concerning motivation and the musical direction of the band. A new departure, a new search. Fortunately, the wait not too long as the time was spent to find the second guitarist and the band discovered Victorien Vilchez (Phazm). The contact with him was excellent at the first meeting and Victorien (bass guitar) joined the band. That brought a new-found motivation to the band. From the beginning, Yyrkoon played with various French bands, and at this period, shows became more interesting, the band shared the stage with bands like Septic Flesh, Natron, Avulsed, Misanthrope, Aborted, Gojira, Scarve, Mercyless, …
After a show with the new line-up in Paris in 2001, Yyrkoon met Stéphane Brulez (Anvil Prod's label manager) to discuss about a possible two album deal. He showed his intersest in the band's music and spoke about a future collaboration. Yyrkoon signed with his label, Anvil Prod, which was very young and Yyrkoon was in fact the first band signed by it.
Anvil Prod allowed Yyrkoon to record their second album at Emma Studios in Paris in the end of 2001. Musically, the compositions are a bit different than others recordings. In fact the whole is more axed on thrashy/heavy old school influences of the band's members. Keyboards are not so present and are really discreet in the songs. That gave birth to "Dying Sun" the second full lenght album in april 2002. Reviews are really good in magazines, some people who knew the band with the precedent album were surprised in good or bad. Some new people discover Yyrkoon with this album too. One thing is sure, the music on "Dying Sun" was still very personal. Anvil Prod found foreign distributions for this release (Japan, Russia.).
2003, Yyrkoon worked on new songs again, and spoke about the third official album recording. Band's evolution led to having to make a choice; On one hand, François's guitar game didn't always satisfy the other members, and Stéphane (vocals & guitar) wanted to go back to a raw formula, without keyboards… discussion… discussion again… Finally, François (guitar) left the band, Jeff (keyboards) dropped his keyboard to grab the second guitar. New songs were more brutal and cold than before. This is a kind of mix between a insane death metal and a harmful thrash metal…
Everything is ok, and Yyrkoon chose to record in Denmark at Jacob Hansen studios (Invocator, Ancient, Aborted, Illdisposed, …). But studio rhymes with problem. Actually, Laurent Harrouart (drums) at this time, knows personnal problems and lost to many motivation to commit himself for studio. The studio is reserved yet, so the band has to find a solution. Dirk Verbeuren (Scarve & Soilwork's drummer) is contacted by Stéphane to ensure session studio for Yyrkoon and he accepted. The band left for denmark in november 2003 and stayed 3 weeks there to record their third full lenght album named "Occult Medicine". The production is really good and all members are very satisfied by the final result. As they came back to France, they sent some copies of "Occult Medicine" to several labels. During their trip in Denmark, they spoke about Anvil Prod's job, and what this label really brought to them. After several point of view and discussions, they were ok on the decision to find something better for Yyrkoon and riped off the deal with Anvil Prod.
After two weeks, Yyrkoon received some positive answers from French labels, and finally, among several propositions, they decided to work with Osmose Productions and signed a two album deal (including the third one "Occult Medicine"). They released their fourth album Unhealthy Opera, though not long after Laurent Harrouart (drums) decided to leave the band due to personal reasons. The band has since then been on-hold since 2007.
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