Shifting lyrics

Hi guys, we had some request for our lyrics so here they are:

1. MUDRA: IN ACCEPTANCE AND REGRET

If fate so rules and I should feel

the miseries of life,

before I see another day

let my body slip away.

Yet i’m alive.

Yet i’m awake.

She who wants perfection,

and weeps for what can never be,

sets this curse.

Her dances are unreal,

ravished by a light,

a flower beauty 

blew in a garden

not unfold.

The jewel-girt arms sway the sound.

Crush my love.

Crush me faith.

Leave me with no trace,

because nothing’s gonna change.

Anticipate it.

Many hearts have been saved this way.

Many hearts have been wounded this way.

Many hearts have been saved this way.

Because love can heal for real.

Because love can hurt for real.

Many hearts have been saved this way.

2. 7^th MOON

I see the sky turning white

while the stars split in thousands of colors.

I read in these people's eyes a great excitement

for the seventh moon.

This night that shines is scaring me.

I'm the dead that walks the earth again.

3. CAOFEDIAN

It's by rising and rising

that we shake hands with the sky.

Craving and longing

for us to live on the stars.

We climb thousands of stairs. 

Breathing until choking, 

the sight blacks out

and I will fall.

From the stars to the sky,

I want to fall. 

From the stars to the sky.

From the sky to the ground.

I will not wait.

To the stars,

over and over. 

Walk through the sky.

Climb,

over and over again. 

I won’t wait

until the end of my days.

My arms will sway,

I’m no longer afraid.

Falling.

Fall down.

I won’t wait.

Not another day.

So far so good.

So far so good.

4. DRIFTING LIGHTS

instrumental

5. BLACK WAVES

Black waves rise

as the shadowline,

sprawling to capsize on themselves.

We, lonely, endeavor to climb.

Behold.

We move in waves today,

drifting away

and never turning back.

Slow down.

Slow down.

Black waves tide:

the surface shines,

the flow

rises again.

It shoves you,

wherever it takes

you won't know this.

6. HADES

“Sleep silent.

It's so hard for me

away from you.

You're a voice in my head.

Somehow someday

you'll follow me

down to the end of the earth,

where you can be born

with a reign on your fingers.”

“You stole my soul and i love you

you swept me off the ground,

spoiling me with promises

just to keep me bound to you.

Hades, Hades, Hades, 

it feels like a stain.

I no longer love you.

It's a mad conviction.

This is a mad conviction,

falling on me.

Falling on me

and relentless grinding on me.

Slow endless nights

at the well,  empty bottom,  

and words I could say

find no ears.

Dry ticks mark time

as love grows quick with seeds,

but spring holds its breath in wait,

it's too late, goodbye.”

7. PROMETHEUS BRING US THE FIRE

In bloom, the sun ended his own way

and a man moved a step for 

a world to come.

With no bother and no pleasure 

took the flame.

Losing the shine

when the struggle claims,

past heroes die today.

Bring us the fire.

So we're alive

and we are wired 

along these ways.

Closing the eyes,

the feelings are left apart, 

denied.

Gaze now the flame.

It burns our world away.

The weight of a shade

as light as our blame.

Falling as rain. 

Coming to drain.

Watching me drown.

All we are losing this strife.

gTar: technology, entertainment, guitar!

guys, i hate guitar hero.

it's not about the videogame itself. everybody would like to be angus young and not only for his schoolboy outfit! and by the way i also am a guitarist and i obviously love to play on a stage.but guitar hero always seemed to me like a way to pretend to be a rockstar without any fucking chance of being one. i mean, you turn on the thing, play that plastic little guitar, do the perfect riff and get a million point. then? what do you get then?you get nothing, because that's where guitar hero fails. thinking that the videogame is somehow similar to playing in a band is like saying that doing cookies with your nephews is like running a three-star restaurant. "it ain't the same fucking ballpark. it ain't the same league. it ain't even the same fucking sport."

anyway this is different. someone finally add some tech to a guitar in a very useful way (not even that robot guitar by gibson ever conviced me 100%).the guys built a guitar, put one lights on the neck for each string and each fret, plugged it to an iPhone with a special app they built and that's it. it teaches you how to play, showing you where to put your fingers, muting the wrong notes if you want to and adding some drums, bass and other instrument to it.maybe it's not the perfect way to be the next guitar hero, but it's a great way to approach the instrument in a very easy way. i dig it!

click here to see what i am talking about!

Pay to play

in these last days i read a lot on facebook about this thing. vivo management seems to be selling out slots for total metal festival, the biggest heavy music fest in southern italy (here's the link to see the bill/cost). testament are headlining, but i don't know any other band in it. 

all right, i am not a walking metal-wikipedia but as far as testament are headlining i expect other popular bands to be in it. that's how festivals usually are. you bring a bunch of very popular bands and gather all their fans in the same place for one day or two. yep, it's that easy!

so why there are no other popular bands playing at total metal festival? probably because total metal festival doesn't really seem to be conceived as a proper festival, but more like a "pay to play with testament contest".

so, what is pay to play?

well, it's quite easy... you pay some money to play with your band in a specific gig, tour, show, etc. it's not something new, it's very common and most of the small bands you see touring out there with your favorite-super-mega-hit-band did pay some money to be on that stage. 

so un-drop your jaw, boys. pay to play is now, pay to play is real, pay to play is at your door!

what's wrong with it?

well, honestly nothing (ok, now drop your jaw). or at least it depends.

i don't think pay to play is such a big scandal by default - unless you pretend to make a festival to suck some minor bands dry - and i'm going to say why.

suppose that you love your band so much, music is your life (especially your music) and you want your dream to come true: you want to be a professional musician. 

well, we could say it's quite similar to running a restaurant. so you have your little restaurant outside your town, you serve superb food and you already spend some money on buying the gear that allow you to cook your dishes. you have been serving food for some time now and you have some "fan" that comes to your place, enjoy your food, headbang with you and vomit on your shoes. well, that's fucking great, what else should i ask for?

now a couple of years has passed. you keep serving your great food, headbang with your customer and clean their vomit off your shoes. well... that's a fucking nightmare! nothing has changed! you put so much passion, time and money (yes you did) in it and it's still the same fucking hole. 

you can't stand it anymore, you want something more, you want your restaurant not to be just a small town diner, but a proper world-famous "ristorante italiano"!

how to do it? well, first of all you have to invest some money. buy some books and learn more recipes, renew your gear so that you can actually do those recipes, do some advertising campaign and eventually move to a big fancy place in the center of the city. that's how new people will see your place, come to your place, become your customer, call their friends and come back to your great "ristorante italiano"!

now, let's go back to music life.

you have your band, you did a couple of good album (at least according to what magazines say), you have your own gear with your own sound, you have your fans. anyway this is not enough, you want more, you wanna go big, you wanna be a pro band. 

how do you think you do it? you must invest some money. you must take your music to a lot of people, you must promote your music both indirectly (advertising, reviews, interviews...) and directly (tour, tour, tour!), in other words you must move you restaurant to a big fancy place in the center of the town (and work for people to like your music... but that's another big theme we will discuss it in the future).

finally, is pay to play bad? there's no straight answer to that. 

if you're paying to take your small band in tour with the rolling stones for a couple of weeks, it's more than fair. you are no one and they are the biggest living band on earth. don't expect mick jagger to come begging to you for your band to support them. that's not gonna happen. ever.

instead, if you're paying to play a 20 minute show, in front of fifty people drinking beers waiting for the one and only popular band performing 5 hours later, well that sucks. a lot.

so the question is not "is pay to play bad", but "is pay to play worthy in this very specific occasion"?

consider the cost, consider your band, consider the chance you have: how many people will come to the show? is it a good crowd for your music? will they be interested in the genre you play? what can you get from this investment? what else can your band do with the same amount of money? so, is it worthy?

now choose and don't be ashamed of your choice, since you did with both your mind and heart.

a.

writing a new album?

yes, we are. i just posted the news on facebook and got some attention from our fans. much more than i expected.
so i wondered, maybe you thought we were dead or dying or not feeling that good.

well, as you probably have read before, we have been through some hard times, but this is not the end. at all.

wanna know what's going on right now?
two of us are dealing with some serious situation at their jobs, closing the past away and starting a hopefully brighter professional life (yes, music is not our job. don't even ask it, it's old-fashioned).
another big boy in the band is moving to a new house. unfortunately his old house hosted our rehearsal room too, so we are looking for a new one. and by the way it seems we just found one - i'll keep you posted on this.

in the meanwhile, we are trying to write new stuff, looking for a new sound, studying different geometries and balances to build our new soundscape. this is gonna be different than anything we did in the past and i am so excited about it.

so, finally, stop your music player and put on some music you never heard before and wait for the spark..
ask your closest friend, read your favorite blog, pick it up randomly but try and try until you find that shiny sound that makes you stop doing anything and drag you into the musical flow.

i just found it and that's the shape of music to come.

a.

why are we doing this?

as you may know we've been in quite awkward situations through the last times.
i wrote about it, some of you write me back, i had been thinking about it for a while and since those days i saw many other bands in the very same condition.

finally we put our emotion aside and tried to focus on the rational part of the problem until we found the core of it. now it's time to medicate us and that's exactly what we are doing right now. we have new song, we have new strength.

this morning i found this video on the net and it seemed to me like a unavoidable part of the medication. that's why i'm adding this piece to the jigsaw. i hope this will complete the picture as it did to me.

a.

back on stage

damn... almost three months since the last post. i am really lazy.

anyway, we spent a nice summer under s serpent sun and we're back on writing the new album.
we're quite at the middle of it but we're still trying to get to new sounds and landscapes. the discovery is not finished yet and it's getting harder and harder, but that's what we love to do so good for us!

in the meanwhile we're trying to fill some days off in our next tour (dates below) and we're planning some shows in italy too.
on friday 14th october we're gonna play our first season show at a cool venue in our hometown... so if you're around don't miss it!

beside this, i'm moving so i guess i won't be posting anything for a while.
we'll get in touch right before or during our tour though.

that's all.
check our tourplan and get in touch if you can help.

a.





HERE ARE THE DATES OF OUR NEXT TOUR.. GET IN TOUCH IF YOU CAN HELP.

13.11.11 *Milano/Genova/Torino/Padova IT* BOOK US!!
14.11.11 *GER/AT* BOOK US!!
15.11.11 *GER/PL* BOOK US!!
15.11.11 *Nurnberg/Munich DE* BOOK US!!
16.11.11 *Wroclaw PL* BOOK US!!
17.11.11 *Brno CZ* BOOK US!!
18.11.11 SK Bratislava, Obluda
19.11.11 A Linz, Ann and Pat
20.11.11 *Zagreb HR* BOOK US!!
21.11.11 *Beograd SB* BOOK US!!
22.11.11 RO RO Cluj-Napoca TBC
23.11.11 RO Bucharest, Control Club
24.11.11 OFF
25.11.11 HR Rijeka, Palach TBC
26.11.11 *Trieste/Padova IT* BOOK US!!

summertime and the livin's easy

hi everybody.
six months since the last post. it's time to get back to you.

first of all, we'd been discussing if uploading here some excerpt from the new songs taking shape. half of us agreed on sharing them with you, the the other half didn't. the question is not really closed yet but we decided not to upload anything so far. unlucky you.

anyway the songs sound pretty cool, at least to our ears. as i said in a previous post, somehow our music changed, somehow it stayed the same. this reminds me of machine head's lyrics: "the more things change, the more they stay the same". well, it's true. our new songs both changed and stayed the same: the general mood didn't change that much, but everything seems more clean and focused. it's like we are finally writing "songs", if you know what i mean. whatever... you will listen to it.

just a few hours ago metal mayhem published an article about us, discussing also this blog. so go there and check it out, clicking here: http://www.metal-mayhem.co.uk/interviews/atthesoundawn.shtml.

moreover, it's summertime. tonight we have our last rehearse before vacation. we are going to stop for some time and we'll be back on september, writing more music and playing more shows.
yes, you got it right, we're going back on the road. and this time we're going to play also in our homeland italy. fuck yeah.

so spend a nice summertime.
see you soon.

a.

oh, one more thing. we're going to be on tour for a couple of weeks in november. if you wanna see us playing a show in your hometown send a couple of lines to this mail: info[at]manusbooking.com

here comes the sun

it has been a tough period for the band. many things concurred to make it one of the hardest time ever for ATS. i already wrote about this.
well, finally the black clouds are slowly spreading and the sun is approaching our portion of sky. however, it usually happens that crisis brings revolution with it and somehow that's what happened also this time.
you know being in a band is not simply a matter of writing music, planning tours, playing shows. at least it is not for ATS. the band and, generally speaking, music is the way we, as individuals, have been exploring, discovering, talking, living ourselves together. it's a journey we started many years ago. unfortunately there's no defined path, no routes to follow and it's easy to get lost. especially when you are the only one who can define the coordinates.
if "red square" was our awkwardly-drawn debut, "shifting" was exactly the way we wanted it to be. that's quite a result, in my opinion, but what to do now? it's like if wile e. coyote caught beep-beep... the great giant has been defeated, well what to do now, david?
in other words, with "shifting" we depicted our own idea of so-called post-core. no matter how bad, annoying, stupid could the album sound to you, we consider it a reached target. indeed it's not a matter of liking it, we're not on the "receiving side" of the musical flow. we're exactly at the opposite point, at the source of music, where we have to find inspiration, motivation, strength.
so, considering all these things, where to go now?

well, we have some ideas and they all implies some sort of (major) changing.
we have four new songs almost ready for a first demo recording, showing us the ways we wanna run this time. all i can say is that dynamics, singing and structures underwent some strong changings. that is songs are way shorter and, in our opinion, more focused.
are you ready for this? are we ready for this?

moreover, we're booking shows again. in 2011 we'll be playing accross italy and europe as wide as we can. if you wanna see us playing in your town, just drop us a line.

the new year is approaching, this is our last post for 2010.
spend these last days at their best.

The losing game.

It's been a week since we got home from our one concert trip to Berlin (Germany) and I've been thinking a lot about it.
The trip was great. It was quite a long time since last time we packed into a van and travel for like 6 or 7 hours to reach a God's forgotten land. This time it wasn't really forgotten, since our first stop was in München, the city of beer. And, as you can see for yourself, Jesus was on our side, leading our way from the top of a pencil.
Unfortunately (or maybe not?) there was no concert booked there, so we spent the night around the city, eating, drinking, smelling each other's gas and, obviously, puking. So yes, here's the incontrevertible evidence... we're back on the road!
Except this, the night was quite "standard" and even short, since at 1 am we were already sleeping.
The next morning we had a good breakfast, watching an incomprehensible German stand-up comedian on TV, we packed our bag and sit back in the van for another 6 hours run.
At mid afternoon we reached Potsdam, that happens to be a tiny wonderful town not far from Berlin, the town that hosted our concert as the final show of the Potsdamer Jazzfest.
The venue was called Waschhaus, that means laundry, and it was a pretty good venue, with a beautiful stage, great lightings and all the stuff that seems to be normal in Germany but looks quite special for anyone who has to deal with Italian venues: buffet with foods and drinks, dinner, towels, dressing-room, hostel accommodation and so on.
Right after the soundcheck, a quick shower and a quicker dinner, we step on the stage and start playing our show. The sound was terrific, the lights were awesome and we were totally enjoying it. Then everything seemed to turn into what I would call a beautiful failure: we took a look off the stage and there was no crowd. Like ten or fifteen people were relaxing on some couches at the very bottom of the room, comfortably enjoying our sound but commiting us the most difficult task a band can ever have to do: playing a great show for a few people.
I don't know if we made it great but I guess we did good since we also sold some merch to that few listeners, who said to have really enjoyed the show, despite the huge hollow off the stage.
On our end, we had quite a good time, even if the condition were almost tragic. So this is it, you would say. Unfortunately this is not. Here it's were the hard part began, at least for me.
Far before the show, the promoter agreed with us for quite a good fee that would have bear our costs, and at the end of the show my only thought was: "How the hell can we ask for that money?". And I mean not literally asking for the money, but how can we took that money knowing that the guy is probably losing half of it. Yes guys, despite our metalhead habits, we have a heart.
The equation was quite easy actually, we did our show, we did our job so we have to get paid. The promoter probably didn't consider all the risk of hiring a not-very-popular band from Italy and that's part of his business. Yes, that's true, but I felt quite bad anyway.
How did it end? We took our fee, the guy lost his leverage and we couldn't even cover our expenses. So, isn't underground music a losing game?

walking backwards

"shifting", our latest album, was released like two or three months ago. the record is awesome, we love it and we think it deserve at least a couple of spins in every openminded rocker cd player (so if you fit, don't waste time and do it now!).
on about a hundred and fifty reviews we got from all over the world, like 90% are good ones and most of these are even enthusiastic, getting marks from 8 to 10 on a 10 point scale. so also journalists seem to agree with our (non-objective) opinion.
we also toured a bit accross europe, playing in austria, hungary, poland, germany, denmark and sweden. we have also been invited to wave gotik treffen, the most important gothic/dark fest in the world, where we performed supporting caspian, junius and good is an astronaut. considering this, you might easily think that our career is ready to start at full throttle. well, you're wrong.

the record is not selling really good. no real people is getting into the band. even in our homeland (beloved and behatred italy) ppl is not really giving a fuck about what we do. we have some warm but gaunt fans here and there around the world. they surely make us happy, but this doesn't help in taking the band on, facing everyday life accidents. indeed we have some major problems with our jobs. italian economy is almost sinking and we are not in the condition of leaving a comfortable job to follow a mere dream at almost 30. we are still waiting to get some money from some of our partners, but it seems like they have just the same problems we have and everything seems to be fucked up in the business. last but not least, we had to cancel a tour in germany because we got no real interest from the venues. not bad, uh?

well, on the other hand, we have a big label that released our previous albums and it's gonna release also our next one - and this is something really precious nowadays, trust me. plus we are actually able of planning short tours over europe, despite the german failure, and we're lucky enough not to waste too much money in that. so let's say we have quite a rewarding and unique hobby!

unfortunately the thing is that there are many successful bands out there, with right the same history that we have, playing a kind of music that is equal or worst to ours, but somehow (maybe beacuse they are british or american, maybe because of their superfashion-alternative look) they have the tons of fans that we don't have - and i am not only talking about the emo kids, i am talking about our scene, the so called "post-rock/metal/hardcore". this awkward thought is stuck in our minds and it's hard to let it go.
we have been playing for so many years, spending so much time, so much energy and so much money in it. we have a good pro-level album with many good reviews on the most important magz all over the world but we still have to fight to get like 250 euros for a show that cost like 300-350 euros to us. wtf. sometimes it really seems like walking backwards.

is it all about us? about the music? about the band?
is there a way to fix things?

your mighty warriors,
ats.

living the band, building the band

hi there people.
in case you're wondering, the answer is: "yes, this is our new website".
in case you're still wondering, the answer is: "no, you won't find any music, pics or video of the band here".
this, as you can easily see, it's just a blog, nothing more than that. why did i choose this form instead of making a proper site?
mainly for two reasons. the first one is that, if you are looking for medias from the band, you have proper sites like myspace (click here) or youtube (click here) or even facebook (click here).
the second one is that we decided to share our whole band life with you, honestly, deeply and totally. why? because we feel that myspace, facebook or whatever site is not enough. depsite their purposes, they are just another filter between the band and the people. however, today more than ever, we feel the needing of sharing our band life with you. the thing is that music is not enough anymore and there's so much work, so much dedication and also so much sorrow just to put a song together that we think you deserve to share it all with us. it's a big part of the band, maybe the biggest one, and we don't want it to get wasted as we don't want you to miss it.
that's why (if i properly set this blog up) everyone will be free to comment our posts, to give us a feedback and to interact with us. we will let you publish any kind of thing except spam or not-related-to-the-band stuff. anything else is welcomed and hoped for.

so this is it. don't expect for correct english because i am not english. don't expect to get always politically correct posts because it wouldn't be honest.
this is just me, this is just us. the band with no filters.
welcome to living the band.

a./ats