Dark Sanctuary comes from France and was, at the begining, a one man band. It was created by Arkdae in early 96. The first release was a demo of 45 min long called Bruises, recorded in febuary 96 and limited to 500 copy. It was a depressiv atmospheric and ambient music, only with keyboards and guitar.
Arkdae started to prepare some new tracks for a new demo. The result of this is only a one track on 20 min long, with one year of preparation before recorded it in early 97. For this, Marquise Ermia helped Arkdae by singing on the track and, it was finnaly released on CD format. The Mcd Funeral Cry is came out in early 98 on Ancestral Craft Production, and is qualified as funeral dark atmospheric symphonic music.

Since September 97, Marquise Ermia is a real member of Dark Sanctuary, like another keyboard player , and a percussionnist. Together, they worked for elaboration of new tracks for their first full lenght CD, recorded in summer 98 and called Royaume mélancolique (melancholic realm in english). The band searches to increase it strenght by introducing new instruments, a violonist join the band in may 98, in the way to form a most various musical ensemble. They use different languages in their lyrics like English, French or latin. They also made their first concert in september 98 near Paris.

In november 99, they leave Ancestral Craft in order to signing with Wounded Love Records for 2 albums. The band have now another violonist and start to prepare their new album, De lumière et d'obscurité, which was recorded in March 2000.

This formation offer more energy and feeling that a simple one man band, and the diversity of the members offer some new musical horizons, without lose the dark, melodic and bewitched side that caracterize Dark Sanctuary since the begining.

Official biography