The "early years" (1997-1998)

The band was born spiritually around 1997-1998. Two guitarist-singers, officiating up to that point in a band without any future of punk/metal (or sometimes shitty pop music and drinking songs when humour or drunkenness pushed them there) decided to found a project which would be clearly more serious and tangible. These were the later called Korkoth and Ravenaz. Having discovered the extreme scene, black metal as much as death & grind and feeling particular affinities with it, the two comrades formed a new band or rather re-defined from the crash the bases of their former one following their new aspirations. In the beginning, Korkoth represented the death/grind side of the band & Ravenaz rather the black then later heavy/trash side. But their fields of expression enlarged very soon.
Korkoth suggested the band's name and shifted after some time to the post of drummer because of the absence of a potential applicant. Ravenaz developed his screaming & composed the outlines of songs which would be used later (at that time, the bases of "Jackals" and "The King's Dying" are elaborated). But the band didn't really have a real identity yet & the level of playing was –so to speak- very limited, which preventend them from reaching full expression of their art. In the same way, the outlines of ravenaz's texts were not as personal yet as they would become later.


The first steps (1998-1999)

In summer 1998, the 2 founding members met at a local extreme music concert Rygnok, who integrated the majority of the extreme bands in the region afterwards, even though each experience never lasted long. besides, for that matter, he became only for a very short time, around February up to April the following year, the keyboards player of SAHAR. The fact was that the band finally decided not to imitate the growing bunch of bands with keyboards, preferring to preserve a certain "roughness" and a “raw” side in their sound. Ravenaz, moreover, has since explained that the keyboards player's far too "unconcerned" character, among other things, would eventually have prevented him from getting seriously and effectively committed in SAHAR, being then already part of another local black metal band, NECRONOMICON. Rygnok remained nevertheless in the shadow of the band as a faithful spiritual warbrother - and a great companion of drinking bouts, should it be specified...
thanks to a fellow musician, Ravenaz met the guitarist Warlock, who was then very influenced by IRON MAIDEN and SEPULTURA, who joined SAHAR in February 1999 and got committed into it very quickly, giving it another tint in the process, an heavier and more melodic one, which was to contribute to the variety of their sound. He specialized very quickly in the powerful rhythm guitar parts and the solos (which would become with time rather crazy and mad). He helped SAHAR to reach a higher level musically and technically-speaking. And the band was in need for that for it was at the time still rather unmethodical & chaotic, even if the group itself started to be constituted physically.


Maturity (1999-2002)

That same year 1999, the same friend musician who had presented Warlock to ravenaz advised the latter to call upon the one who would later be called Azazel, one of their mutual friends, to fill up the absence of a bass player for the coming concerts. Azazel thus joined the band in april/may 1999 but, being originally a guitarist, he could only help SAHAR by playing bass parts on an electric guitar first, before finally being able to afford a cheap bass guitar, and so becoming the band's first official bass player.
then SAHAR reached a higher speed. Ravenaz had started to write more than ever and very quickly composed the outlines of many songs on which the band would focus. The result was in turn the first two live shows, rather bad, in June 1999, then the band's first auto-produced Demo , "Stay And Have A Rest", which was recorded, unfortunately without Azazel who wasn't available and therefore without bass, in a few days during the summer, and which was to remain, in spite of its deplorable sound - a chaotic and rather powerful but messy fucked-up one, owing to the poor conditions in which it was recorded- a reference for the band which continues to this day to play the majority of its songs.
But this Demo was recorded in haste. SAHAR then tried to set more regular rehearsals in order to polish the style they had just settled and which started to be defined.
when they got the feeling that their level of playing had improved, they re-recorded in 2000 their first Demo of 1999, interpreting it the way they sounded then. Korkoth's improvements on the drums were impressive and foreshadowed beneficial things for the future. Some song structures were re-visited. Unfortunately, the sound on this recording revealed even worse than that of the first one, in a different way, too smooth & clean and not powerful enough. Thereby, after already 2 recordings, the band still didn't have a Demo likely to satisfy distribution labels or even to be sold on a large scale. The band therefore resumed rehearsing and worked on brand-new songs. They managed to get a real rehearsal studio –before that, they had to “borrow” various places to rehearse, when it was not a member's garage/Cellar. SAHAR thus ended up at the ECLIPSE/AMANDIS Prod. Studio in TROYES (10) where in August 2001, after many rehearsals and a few gigs they got the opportunity to carry out their first free studio recording ; 2 titles, and what's more noteworthy, 2 new titles! The sound is the best they'd ever had at the time, even though it is highly deplorable that in no studio in that town, according to the statements of many local bands, can one get an adequate sound for metal guitars or drums, one with width and depth. However, the band started to hope for following bright times…
Alas, SAHAR was going to be locked in a period of stagnation. Whereas from every side, for some time the band had been offered several projects of promotion, distribution, concerts, etc…, no promise was carried out, SAHAR having also wrongly relied on third parties. Warlock was going in addition to suffer from many personal upheavals/troubles which were going to lead him to some weariness and disgust of life and to commit suicide on February 18, 2002. It has been a tremendous hard blow for the whole band and still a black day in their existence.


The new deal (2002)

Warlock's death put a stop to the band's constant search of improvement, as they were about to experiment other horizons and to integrate new elements (…still extreme ones, of course). After that, Ravenaz planned to continue with only one guitar, to move on towards a more rough and raw side. But Korkoth soon learnt that a musician the 2 founding members particularly admired & respected would be interested to replace Warlock. It was Sam, the guitarist-vocalist of the local death metal band VISCERAL DISSECTION. Ravenaz thought a lot about it before concluding that perhaps it would be a good alternative for SAHAR, the band needing a skilled musician having an advanced level in order to be able to play their former guitarist's parts, especially the solos. In the same way, the experience Sam had within a well-settled band -from death metal what's more, which would be able to widen their field of influences- as well as the relations within the “underground” he had thanks to VISCERAL... everything seemed beneficial for the band. After a first series of rehearsals with the new guitarist, the result was revealing, beyond all hopes. Sam brought more depth & heaviness to their sound and his experience as a musician was obvious. Moreover, he showed then the same optimism and the same motivation as his notorious predecessor when everything was ok.

Lucid and conscious from now on that they'd better re-start everything from the crash, since the band was no longer consisting on ancestral relational bonds, Korkoth & Ravenaz decided to split with Azazel, who was showing an apparent lack of motivation and involvment, in spite of an adequate and friendly personality, to integrate Vincent, , the bass player in another local black metal band on the decline at the time, BAALBERITH.


The new deal (bis) (2002-2004)

After several rehearsals, new problems cropped up. The new bass player, in spite of a technical level higher than his predecessor, seemed not to be fully committed in the band, eventually proving to be apparently very little concerned and even less available. The band then decided to call upon a friendly close relation, a "beginner" in playing bass but one very well integrated in the "Saharan" circle, who would get more and more involved, ending up by writing texts, and who would improve more and more technically. That was "Lord KrØhlig ".

In the same time, Ravenaz left a little aside the singing during rehearsals, asserting he had difficulty in bringing as much power at the same time in his vocal as in his guitar-playing. He started considering the new visual dimension and the renewal of "live" power a vocalist could bring to the band. That's why sahar started to look for a new vocalist and received the amazing offer of a fan, close relation to the band since the beginning, and whose vocal aptitudes weren't known. That was "Avrüs". However, the two new recruits were a little less experienced than the former members and had to work a lot in order to catch up with the band's level. That's why Ravenaz planned to continue to do some vocals & bass parts on a potential future recording.

The months were going by and Sam had started to desert the rehearsal room and seemed to privilege, as Ravenaz dreaded, his first band VISCERAL DISSECTION. besides, the relationship between him and the other members - although non-hostile - revealed a gap, the guitarist seeming more carried along on "fun" purely speaking & on "letting-go" than on the cynicism and the irony, more serious & committed of the band, and more likely to play some riffs from IMMORTAL or from other black metal bands from time to time than to understand fully the musical dimension of SAHAR which is far from being just an influenced band or a cover-band… However, the band, aware of what he brought them, decided to give him a chance, even though Ravenaz could sometimes hardly hide his irritation about the behaviour of his guitarist-counterpart. Anyway, Sam himself announced, during 2003, that he gave up, having difficulty – how bizarre! - in being part of several bands at the same time and especially in working the compos with the "Saharan" method (which requires a personal work and a deepened individual involvement, most of the work being done separately, at home with tapes ; and not like other bands who only work songs during rehearsals). Sam didn't say anything about the atmosphere within the band but it seemed this had had a part in his decision, the relationship with his other band VISCERAL DISSECTION being far more "relaxed" … In the same way, it was extremely probable he had had enough of the period of stagnation the band was encountering, after one year spent in it, and that he couldn't take it seriously, and refused to leave him more time to take again its take-off.

In short, the loss was rather heavy from a technical point of view, especially for the solos, and for the musical dimension of the band where the two guitars were prevailing. However, Ravenaz wished not to seek another guitarist, declaring that the state of mind/spirit within the band was now perfect, which was the most important to him. So he decided to give more importance to KrØhlig's bass playing, which he helped to develop, and to a musical dimension where bass and guitar would be complementary, even if in recording it was necessary to go on with the 2 - guitar playing.

In the same time, the members of the band found themselves unwillingly dispatched geographically owning to external reasons (work, studies, placements/trainings…) and the rate of the rehearsals began to slow down before totally stagnating, also due to financial constraints. The band decided, therefore, to make a break in order to polish their compos and to allow KrØhlig and Avrüs to catch up with the others' level to prepare a forthcoming Demo.

In August 2003, SAHAR was finally given the opportunity of recording what could then become the successor of "Stay And Have A Rest" by Florent L, the musician also reconverted now into sound engineering/recording who had encouraged Ravenaz to recruit Warlock & Azazel in 1999. The band thus found itself under similar conditions of recording to that of the "Stay…" (with in addition the smothering heat of summer 2003) but with better material and a skilled and experienced man who would be able to understand and integrate the "characteristics" of the band. However, SAHAR could only take 2 days (all the official Demos were recorded in 2 days anyway!) and could not record as many tracks as planned, preferring to concentrate on 4 titles (plus an intro), due also to the fact that these songs were more elaborated and complex, much more "dense" that those of 1999. This Demonstration, which was first to be entitled "Shadows of Death", would finally be "Satanic And Hellish Aeons Rising".


An illusory Solidification (2004-2005)

In spite of the band's cohesion, the lack of a second guitarist was to be felt, in particular during the rehearsals, or when evoking future concerts. So the members of SAHAR more or less considered searching for the "second one" who could make the deal. Between several possibilities, it was Baptist (I Still Believe, Darc Mutcer) who would offer his services, but was going to desist thereafter, being too busy with his other formations (that reminds me of someone…). But it was Azazel, ex-bass player of SAHAR, who was going to be heard about again. He joined the band, armed with his guitar, at a rehearsal in April 2004, and officially reintegrated the band. The band thus became a quintet united by the same mentality and the same investment… or so it seemed at the time.

Except that, at the end of June 2005, less than 2 weeks before the beginning of the next recording session, Azazel decided to break his bond with the band and to quit for reasons which are his own. He acknowledged and put to the fore his non-implication and mentioned a divergence in musical conceptions, preferring to go towards a more “primitive” style (dixit the former member).


Source : http://perso.orange.fr/saharhorde/english/frameset.htm