40 Years of Chaos · EP.15 — The Stripped Quartet: Distorted Metal Day

At the end of 2001 Marcello Lammoglia left AydrA to play with Gunfire. The technical death of Icon of Sin had become too complex, too cerebral for his more direct sensibility. The band chose not to replace him straight away and carried on as a four-piece: Mauro on vocals, Francesco Olivi as sole guitarist, Mastro on bass, Nicola Raffaeli on drums. They toured that way for around eighteen months, between 2001 and the end of 2002 — the leanest phase of AydrA's live career.

Without a second guitar the sound turned more frontal, more aggressive. Francesco had to cover the entire harmonic front alone, and that pressure pushed him to develop a new guitar language: more layered, more vertical, with intensive use of delay and tapping. The first riffs of what would become Hyperlogical Non-Sense were born in exactly those months.

The most important date of the stripped-down line-up came on Saturday 21 June 2003, at the Distorted Metal Day in Senigallia. Headliners were Dark Lunacy, at the peak of their rise between Devoid and Forget-Me-Not. AydrA opened the night as a four-piece. Same Italian death circuit, different sensibilities — AydrA on the technical side, Dark Lunacy toward the melodic and symphonic — and the same mutual respect.