40 Years of Chaos · EP.11 — Icon of Sin, the Recording

The sessions began after Psycho Pain Control, running through 1997 and 1998 at David Lenci's Sound Machine Recording. The band looked back at its own past and recovered two tracks from Demo 4, Pleasure Dome and Night Drive, both written by Giovanni Rovatti, rearranging them for the new technical death language. Around them stood the new pieces: Icon of Sin, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, No One's Tale, Reflect and Desist, The Day of the Wedding, Xavier's Dream, Lost Time Fury.

The line-up was the same one that had recorded the debut, but the sound was transformed: Mauro Pacetti on bass and vocals, Francesco Olivi on lead guitar, Marcello Lammoglia on rhythm guitar, Nicola Raffaeli on drums. Five years in the rehearsal room had consolidated the compositional balance into something more labyrinthine and cerebral. The title track had already surfaced in a primordial version on Scream From Italy III in 1998.

The cover came from an original sculpture by Eugenio Morganti, an artist born in Luxembourg in 1973 and deeply tied to Corinaldo. Not an illustration but a plastic face that becomes the icon of sin itself. No monsters, no gore, no infernal symbols: a fixed, symbolic image, almost religious in its stillness. The visual manifesto of the entire album.