Apotheosis (Malta) was born in late '93. Practical in the areas of ambient electronic music and heavily impressed by the intense sound and atmosphere of Black Metal of the early 90s, the creator and sole member of the project, Sauron, embarked on a quest to blend these two dimensions of music. Armed with only an Amiga computer (8 bit sound, only 4 voice polyphonic and 1 megabyte of ram), an old 4 track, a cheap reverb box and a microphone, he set out to make these two intense areas of music converge into one style. And attempt to cope with the ratio of a ton of ideas to a very restricted audio setup. The earliest Apotheosis material was quite primitive. It hovered more along the ambient zone with textures and passages derived from the cryptic and cold realms of Black Metal. After a year of experimentation, the material recorded was clearly showing the evolution of this project, from rudimentary ambient passages to properly organised guitars, to vocals.

In February '95, the first demo, Shadows Eve, was released. It contained the best (or the decent) efforts of Apotheosis conceived during the previous year. The demo was distributed and promoted by Omegazine. The support and effort of Omega's G.W. Borg in promoting the project throughout the years were crucial to Apotheosis. The demo's impact had various reactions. Reviews in metal zines were, on the whole, very positive. But while others wandered fascinated in the realms of the demo's distinctive macabre atmosphere, some, possibly turned off by the demo's equally indistinctive sound quality and primitive drum patterns, didn't appreciate the effort. The demo's greatest drawbacks were that it had no real guitars and the evident sequenced drums that lacked variation due to the very limited audio setup. In fact, the demo was actually crap, but no one could deny the powerful dark aura emanating from the original ideas, arrangements and melodic passages. And considering this was a "symphonic black metal" demo created without using any real guitars, keyboards, drums or modules, using only a dated computer with a 1 megabyte ram which only allowed a maximum of 4 sounds played at the same time, Shadows Eve was quite an effort.

The demo contained 4 tracks of bizarre dark metal with a mechanical pace merging with ambient keyboard parts and orchestra samples. The title track and the demo's opener immediately create the right atmosphere with a macabre symphony followed by "Rite Of Eternal Revelation", a well arranged and original black/death epic. "Medieval Rapture" ends the first side of this demo with the sounds of flutes, pipes and forest ambience. This track, as the name suggests, attempts to recreate an experience from another era and also the beauty of solitude at a time when man and his filth were still scarce. The b-side of the demo is entirely dedicated to the eerie "Darkside Gates". This 20-minute track evolves from a somber and macabre metal track into keyboard-oriented ambient. The demo took over a year to seriously kick off, but when it did, many zines were featuring interviews and reviews concerning Apotheosis. In the meantime Sauron was already forging a new better sound, this time using real guitars. The demo even got the attention of the cult underground magazine Voices From The Darkside. The mag not only highlighted Shadows Eve as one of the recommended demos of the month but also featured a relative 2-page interview in the same issue. It was the feature on "Voices?" that really got the attention of the labels. Many contacted Omega Prod. for copies of the demo and information regarding the project. The demo's remaining copies sold out in less than a month and soon contract offers began to appear, some from small labels and others from reputable ones, based on the demo material alone.

But by this time, another released was in progress. The plainly titled Promo 97 was the second release from Apotheosis and the included material left the demo miles away. Apotheosis not only now sounded like a full band but also went through a radical change in style and, especially, in quality. The demo contained 3 tracks: "The Maimed God", "Raise The Dragon Banner" and a cover of Sodom's "Burst Command 'Till War". The promo was aimed at the labels. And only 5 copies where sent out, specifically intended for 5 labels, one of them being Nocturnal Art Productions, a label being considered very reputable by Sauron and Omega Prod.. As predicted, all the selected labels responded very positively to the promo and all 5 offered a contract. And Nocturnal Art was the number one choice, based not on the size of the deal, but on the metal integrity of the label. After the usual negotiations and arrangements, the project mainman and N.A.P. agreed their terms on a contract. Apotheosis joined the label roster and signed for two albums in 1998. The songwriting for the intended debut album material was completed a year and a half later but due to uncontrollable events the album couldn't be recorded until recently. Apotheosis entered the studios August 2001 and after three weeks took the recorded material back home for further editing. The debut album Farthest From The Sun consists of four songs (with a total running time of over 50 minutes), two of them reworked tracks from the 1997's promo. Musically the present sound of Apotheosis offers a unique blend of Thrash, Epic and Symphonic Black Metal.