Ravn began conceptually in late 2003 / early 2004, as a solo project of my 15 year old self. Eventually a former musical collaborator and friend of mine joined me as a synth player, and we created depressing, minimalistic soundscapes, with hint traces of black metal in the sound. We continued in this fashion until 2008. I had always had intentions of making the project more concrete in style, and to play shows. The opportunity presented itself when in late 2008 a black and doom metal themed festival realized its first year. I gathered musicians who I had known and worked with in the past; a drummer, and a bassist. I decided to take the double duty of guitars and vocals. Since then, we have a different bassist - but this was our first manifestation of what became today's Ravn. We played the Heart of Winter Festival I in Richmond, Virginia, at the end of December 2008, and shared the stage (or hallway in this case) with Black Anvil, Woe, Evoken, and Withered. We are comprised of members of other local acts Obviam, Necrobeast, and Industrial Grade Acid.

Our style, musically, is something that may be hard to sum up in any sort of written way. It is eclectic to say the least. If we have to lump it into one category, it would have to be black metal. However we have our fair share of death metal influences. We tend to take a bit of an experimental and atmospheric direction. You probably wouldn't call us grim, but then it depends on what songs you've heard. We explore many different emotions musically....whether an upbeat Irish-melody, or a quicker-paced Arabic-influenced progression, whether a celebration of love or hate, of life or death, our music retains a cold emptiness. 

Why should a metalhead buy our demos or albums? Well, because he or she likes the music! I don't feel that any metalhead should have to take a stab in the dark when it comes to buying albums. Sure it can sometimes be thrilling, but that's not always what you want to do, and I know that I won't be finding any of the shit I download illegally online at my local record store any time soon. So why waste good money on something that you later find out you don't like? Shouldn't have to if you don't want to. That should be yours, the consumers decision.  Not the RIAA's. So download our stuff. If you like it, buy it if you want. Or don't. We won't hold it against you either way.

As far as official releases go, the only truly official release has been our 2010 EP entitled Welken Waelder. As far as public/media reception goes, to my knowledge there are no reviews anywhere online. So, I don't know

As mentioned earlier, we do play live shows, although fairly infrequently. We've gone through a couple of hiatuses already, due to illness or travels, but we are back in full-swing. Full-swing is still not very active, we tend to limit our shows a lot. To play too often would be superfluous in a city such as ours, where it's the same faces every metal show. So far we have performed 8 live rituals in an over 2-year existence. That says something to the frequency of our live shows

There's not really any sort of interesting fact about our band or something that is going to make labels, zines, or promoters any more interested in us. We are simply starting a revolution within the american black metal "scene." The east coast in recent years has been hit with a swarm of punk-black metallers, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's simply not something that we're interested in adhering to. We're throwing out the punk, and instead bringing black metal back to its bloody rock and roll roots, while never sacrificing speed or ingenuity in our compositions and performances. If you're bored of what has suddenly become the archetypal american black metal sound, then we might be what you're looking for.

In the near future, we are planning a very small tour along the east coast between Virginia Beach and New York City, and then the recording of our debut full-length album will commence. A 2-song sampler from the full-length will be released during the east coast tour in May, and the full-length should be fully completed by mid to late summer 2011. We are exploring options for the release of this full-length. 

You can listen to our 2010 EP on our myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/ravn9), or on ReverbNation and Facebook. Anybody who might be interested in buying our single release can contact either Depressive Illusions Records to obtain a tape cassette, or contact us directly at ravnrva@yahoo.com for cassettes, but also CDs (I will personally make you a CD if you want to buy one), patches, which are extremely limited in number, and shirts. 

March 2011