Genus Ordinis Dei is a symphonic death metal band from Crema, Italy. The band was established in 2011 by a close circle of professional music instructors who graduated from Italy’s most respected music academies (RGA, MMI, NAM). In the beginning, the band sculpted its style, melting new millennium metal with symphonic sonorities. During this period, they carefully defined their musical identity, developing the idea for a trilogy of releases wherein the first album released would be Act II of the story. The band’s debut entitled The Middle was released independently in 2013, and they heavily backed it up by an intensive run of live shows across Italy and Europe into the following year.

In 2014, the band met Marco Coti Zelati (Lacuna Coil) while on tour, and a friendship formed over the following months. In February of 2015, the band tapped him to produce their upcoming EP 2016 release which was mixed and mastered by Simone Mularoni at Domination Studio. The band signed to Danish label, Mighty Music, and The Middle received a proper release in January of 2016, along with music videos for the songs ‘Ghostwolf’ and ‘Roots and Idols of Cement’.

In the summer of 2016, the band returned to Domination Studio with Simone Mularoni as a producer, to begin work on their next full-length album Great Olden Dynasty which was another exhilarating side-story to the trilogy, containing ten brand new tracks of symphonic, technical splendor. The album also featured Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil on guest vocals in the song “Salem“. After completing the album though, they parted ways with Mighty Music due to creative differences. In the fall of 2016, Genus Ordinis Dei was invited to join the Delirium World Tour supporting Lacuna Coil and Forever Still where they completed a five-week endurance of 31 gigs in some of Europe’s most prestigious venues. The tour was a great success for the band, landing them in dozens of positive reviews in the press. Over the following months, the band entertained offers from several record labels, however, in the Summer of 2017 they finally signed a worldwide deal with U.S. label Eclipse Records.

Great Olden Dynasty was released worldwide via Eclipse Records on November 24, 2017, and it received critical acclaim from the metal press & radio worldwide. The band supported the release on the road throughout the year both headlining gigs and also supporting Dark Tranquility, Jinjer, and Suffocation. In the fall of 2018, the band released a single and music video covering the Manowar song “Hail and Kill” as a tribute. In early 2019, the band toured with Evergrey and Bloodred Hourglass on “The Atlantic European Tour” and released another single entitled “Nemesis” which featured Melissa Van Fleet on guest vocals. In the summer, the band also performed at the Metalitalia Fest with Arch Enemy, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and many more. After the festival, the band immediately began tracking new material for their next album.

Throughout the remainder of 2019, the band wrote and recorded what would be their third full-length album, entitled Glare of Deliverance. The album was produced by guitarist Tommaso Monticelli (Jumpscare, Eternal Delyria, Geschlecht) at his own Sonitus Studio. “Glare of Deliverance” is much more than a follow-up to their sophomore album, however… It is a series of ten individual songs, each with its own music video/episode. These “episodes” combine in sequence like a short film or television series that tells the story of a young woman named

Eleanor, who is persecuted by the Holy Inquisition. Without a doubt, this was the band’s most ambitious undertaking yet, because the scope and vision of the project had grown monumentally huge in comparison to

their previous projects. Aside from recording & producing an album worthy of a Grammy in the metal category, the band had to pull together a full production team for the video series which consisted of concept artist Tom Roberts (Ghost), costume designers, animal trainers, a cast of actors & actresses, visual effects supervisors, special effects wizards, stuntmen, catering services, and even a full orchestral choir. By securing special permits, and quarantine of cast & crew they were able to stay on schedule throughout the first half of 2020, and the result is an epic masterpiece of symphonic metal combined with the executed artistic vision of four brilliant musicians.

“Glare of Deliverance” features ten tracks of powerful, soaring symphonic metal that will leave you amazed, both sonically and visually. The video series brings the concept art of Tom Roberts to life and may even give you nightmares! The horror-esque storyline leaves you feeling helpless, unable to save Eleanor from her corrupt accusers, while the hooks of the music remind you of her struggle. Can you resist her glaring eyes while she looks at you and cries for help? You can try, but we don’t think so… “Glare of Deliverance” was released on December 4, 2020 via Eclipse Records. Here’s our exclusive interview with the guitarist & producer of Genus Ordinis Dei, Tommy.

Beginnings:

We’re 4 metalheads: Me, Nick (guitars and vocals), Steven (bass), and Richard (drums). The band was formed in 2008 in Crema, our hometown. We were just a bunch of long-time friends who shared a passion for metal music and we decided to start to play together. We were 20 years old and none of us ever played in a real band before Genus Ordinis Dei – and I personally still never played in other bands. Richard came later in 2012 after changing two other drummers.

Behind the name:

Actually, it’s a long and curious story… Initially, the band’s name was supposed to be G.O.D. and it should be the abbreviation for each of our album’s titles (that’s a feature we kept though, like in Glare Of Deliverance or Great Olden Dynasty). So our first album was supposed to be titled Genus Ordinis Dei: The Middle (the birth of the divine order). Unfortunately, the acronym G.O.D. would be impossible to find on the internet search so, after self-publishing in 2013 the album, we decided to change our name just to Genus Ordinis Dei and when we re-published the album with the danish label Mighty Music in 2016 we simply called it “The Middle”.

Inspiration:

What inspired me most – and still does – are my childhood fantasies. This kind of music/storytelling brings to life the sensations and the fantasies that I had during my childhood – a childhood that I shared with Nick – and thinking about those values, feelings, dreams, and primitive visions I had when I was a boy gave me – and also still does – the inner impulse to bring them to life. Listening to our music still touches me.
Also, now that we’ve experienced how it feels to be on a professional tour, playing every day in big cities, big venues and sharing the stage, nightliner, and stuff with great bands, I would say that it’s definitely something I wanna do for the rest of my life.
Then there’s a lot of bands that inspired me through this journey but I can’t forget how it started: Blind Guardian, Kamelot, and Iron Maiden are my all-time favorite guys and they’ll ever be. In this exact moment, the most impressive band to me is Gojira, from the songs to the image to the performances: top band right now. They’re so inspiring.

Inspiration behind Glare of Deliverance:

Making this album, more than in others, I reissued old memories, melodies, and riffs buried in some far corner of my past. I really started with some simple ideas that came to my mind from when I was a kid and I developed the album around those simple themes. The idea of the story was born years ago too, actually, I still remember us writing down on a notebook the plot of the chapters while hanging out in a pub in our hometown. Then, almost two years ago, we thought it was good enough and we decided it was time to try to make it real. I don’t think we had a specific reason why we chose the Holy Inquisition. We just enjoy writing good stories, the same stories we’d like to read/listen/watch.

Describe the album in 5 words!

Oh, but that’s so easy: THE FIRST METAL MUSIC SERIES

Teamwork:

We are definitely not a rehearsal-jamming band, each one has his specific task in the workflow, from the social management to gear-related manual jobs and the same happens for the songwriting and the production of the songs, lyrics, and videos. I’m focused on the songwriting and the production process. Obviously, almost anything must be approved by the band and eventually changed until everyone is satisfied. It’s like an assembly line, but much more poetic and fun of course. (smiles)

COVID-19:

We’re trying our best to keep creating content and developing new music, making a lot of “office work” just hoping that all this comes to an end quickly. From this point of view, releasing Glare Of Deliverance kept us busy for a long time, almost 2 years so far. For the first time I produced, mixed, and mastered the album entirely in my own studio “Sonitus Studio”, so it’s been a tough challenge, and I enjoyed it so much! Then we had to deal with the construction of the video series of this story, a totally new thing for us – and also for the fans – that led us to face a lot of difficulties and uncertainty moments, especially in the middle of this pandemic. But still, we enjoyed it and we’re so proud of the final result, both visually and musically speaking. It took a lot of time, considering that we had to create a crowdfunding campaign that fortunately went well. So far, COVID-19 couldn’t stop us from working hard and delivering this crazy opera.

Online concerts:

This is something we’re considering since the beginning of the pandemic and we’re still studying the situation. So yes, it’s definitely an option that we’re seriously considering but I can’t confirm anything about it.

Fun facts:

As you may know, all the best stories come from touring life, and we have tons of it! So I’ll tell you about a classic situation, a tradition: last gig’s stage prank we did in our last tour with Evergrey and Bloodred Hourglass. We were the opening band and BRHG guys broke into our show dressed like mummies and danced between us for a whole song like Eddie of Iron Maiden. It was fun but we had something wicked in mind for them. During their show, we suddenly came wearing just our trousers and stupid hats, drinking beer and shouting and our F.O.H. Engineer Dario (R.I.P.) silenced their show on the P.A. and put Gigi D’Agostino’s song “L’Amour Toujours”. The fun thing is that he forgot to put shut BRHG stage monitors so they were not aware of what people were hearing and continued playing their song, so the crowd’s view was: us dancing and joking on stage (drunk) with BRHG laughing and playing their song while “L’Amour Toujours” was playing at an unreal volume for the crowd. We got insane videos of that, it was so fun. (laughs) Evergrey’s prank was less invasive instead: we spread porn pictures taken from a magazine all over the stage before their first song. That’s usually the best you can do as an opening band, unfortunately.

Thank you for the interview, it’s been a pleasure. I hope this pandemic comes to an end soon because we’re looking forward to playing the new songs in the brand new live performance that we’re setting. We’re changing almost anything to give our fans a completely restyled show with great enhancements and a totally new crew. Eleanor’s journey is just begun! Stay safe and stay metal. Hail!