Ancient Rites was originally formed in Belgium in 1988 by Günther Theys and Philip. Günther had been active in many underground acts since 1979 but now things were starting up for real. In the early days the band had a drummer whose name is still unknown th Günther since he was only there for a short while and introduced to him by the guitarist Philip. In those early days the band had lots of members who only stayed for a short while but eventually a stable line-up was formed.
In 1990 the band recorded their demo "Dark Ritual". The band was now starting to gain a loyal group of fans in the local area and they were invited to play at a metal festival. Problems began to occur though and their drummer Stephan had to be replaced (he later committed sucide due to personal problems). To complete the tragedy their guitarist Philip died in a car accident on the 31st of August 1990. Johan also left the band since he could not relate to the concept of Ancient Rites.

Günther didn´t want to surrender and he gathered new members to continue the band. The music of the band now turned more extreme which led to the loss of some old fans but it also gained them lots of new fans, this time all over the world. Since black and death metal was not very popular at the time they decided to create their own label called Fallen Angel Records through which they released their self financed EP "Evil prevails". After ehri debut release they toured all over Europe. They now had to fire their guitarist Pascal since he had navy obligations and didn´t have the time for touring.

Ancient Rites gained fans everywhere and they became the first foreign black metal band to play in Greece, Portugal and Italy. The mayor of Lisbon and Coca Cola sponsored the first big metal fest in Portugal where the band was the headliners. The church arsons and murders in Norway 1992/1993 was good for business. The sales for Ancient Rites increased and they were one of the first black metal bands to tour abroad together with names like Samael, Impaled Nazarene and Blasphemy. They had some problems at this time though since people who were very much against black metal hid in the crowd at shows and tried to hurt the band. Clubs that booked the band received bomb and death threats from among others religious organisations.

The band not only had problems with external threats but their own label ripped them off completely and due to lousy distribution their albums could not be found. They now signed with Mascot Records and released their second album "Blasfemia Eternal". Right before their first European tour as headliners their guitarist Bart decided to end his music career since he didn´t like th business aspect of it. The tour was very close by and since no one was able to play the whole tour lots of guest guitarists were involved during that. Some of these were Mike (Pentacle - Holland), Blakkheim (Katatonia, Diabolical Masquerade - Sweden), Raphael (Crucifire - Belgium), Chris (Absu, Bloodstorm - USA) and Erik (Inquisitor - Holland).

During one year they had several session guitarists and also decided to use a keyboard player on live shows. Eventually they found a new line-up with Jan Yrlund and Erik Sprooten on guitars, Walter van Cortemberg on drums, Oliver Phillips on keyboards and Günther on bass/vocals. The third album "Fatherland" was recorded with this line-up. This was the big break for the band and was voted album of the month in several metal magazines. The band now faced other problems. Before there were religious organizations opposing the band and now people were wrongly accusing them of having political messages in their music due to the medieval/ancient themes.

In the year 2000 Ancient Rites left Mascot Records due to their change of policies. They now signed to the Dutch label Hammerheart Records. The first album on the new album, "Dim Carcosa", was released in the end of May 2001. In October 2001 the band fired the keyboard player Domingo Smets since he was not able to play the complex keyboard parts live. The new keyboard player is Davy Wouters (Dance Macabre, Oblivion).

From www.tartareandesire.com