page_title: Velvet Darkness (band)
section_title: Nothing But Glory and Ang’s departure (2016–2019)
hierarchical_section_title: Velvet Darkness (band) / History / Nothing But Glory and Ang’s departure (2016–2019)
caption_attribution_description: Español: Demian Warheart y John Rai en la grabación del videoclip de Death Eaters.
context_page_description: Velvet Darkness is a Mexican heavy metal band from Ciudad Satélite, Mexico, founded in 2013 by guitarist Joe SaraF and bassist Charles Kray. The band is known for their literature-based lyrics, mainly from fantasy and horror genres, and fantasy in general. Velvet Darkness has released songs based on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter characters, Stephen King’s Carrie, and Star Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi. Their power metal style has been compared to that of bands such as Helloween, Sonata Arctica or Avantasia.
context_section_description: Work on their debut album began in February 2016. Absence and departure of members started to delay the writing process. SaraF left temporarily the band from May to July, bringing Rich Cuevas as his replacement; Cuevas would become the band’s substitute guitarist until 2019. In September, Ang left in order to pursue a master’s degree in Spain, which prompted auditions, and in November, Kate Michaels joined the band.
  Recordings began in November 2016 with Castillos de Cristal’s guitarist Israel Arcos as engineer, with Yanez laying down his drum sections. He later moved to San Jose, California for six months. Meanwhile, the rest of the band continued with the recording from February to April 2017 with Arcos. After being unsatisfied with that recording, the band rerecorded and mixed with Omar Hernández from August to September. 
  In August 2017, Velvet Darkness joined management agency Treehouse Entertainment with manager Omar Pérez. Additional mixing work was made by David Pesina, who also mastered the album. On 26 February 2018, “Howling Hearts” was released as the album’s first single; it featured Castillos de Cristal’s singer Lalo Largher on vocals. In April, Rai won the 2017 Osmium Award for Best Keyboardist.  On 7 May, the band announced the title for the album would be Nothing But Glory, and released “Break the Ice” as second single.
  Nothing But Glory was released on 8 June 2018, followed by a more extensive national tour, including four dates with gothic band Lvto. The 10-track album included “Is It Me?”, a song not included on Delusion due to length issues; it also included rerecordings of “Death Eaters” and “The Wise Knight” with Michaels on vocals, only available on the CD version.
  On 14 January 2019, Velvet Darkness released their first music video, a live recording of “Death Eaters”.  It was released as single on digital platforms with the Michaels rerecording of “The Wise Knight” as side-B. The song, based on the characters of the same name from the Harry Potter books, and the music video got the band recognition from the Wizarding World fandom, considered “a step for magical music outside of the parameters of wrock”. 
  On 22 February 2019, the band announced the departure of Warheart. On the same day, Rai moved to Japan, still contributing to the writing and recording process remotely; the band has refused to hire a substitute, using playback for keyboards and sequences during live shows. Cuevas, Reckoning’s Alfredo Méndez and Altair served as live guitarists for the following months, the latter becoming official member on 9 October; he was introduced with a rerecording of “God of War”, song from Nothing But Glory. During the next two months, Velvet Darkness was supporting act for Alia Tempora and Lèpoka on their Mexican tours.
caption: Demian Warheart and John Rai
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