Black Viper
Before the Storm
BLACK VIPER BEFORE THE STORM Black Viper began as a solo-project late 2012 when creator Cato Stormoen made some more melodic songs that didn’t fit in his main band Deathhammer. Cato recorded a couple of instrumental demo versions of the songs Metal blitzkrieg and Freedom`s reign in 2013, which would later end up being on the debut album «Hellions of Fire». Then he recorded an instrumental EP which also never got released. Then, Cato moved from his home town of Grimstad to Oslo where he met up with original band members: Arild M Torp and Christoffer Bråthen. Together they rehearsed without a vocalist until the summer of 2015 when the band searched for singers to audition. An acquaintance of Cato, whom he had known through the years from parties applied for the job, and one fateful summers eve, Black Viper’s line up was complete when Salvador Armijo joined the ranks. The band started rehearsing for a demo recording soon after.
Storming with Vengeance
the demo days
STORMING WITH VENGEANCE THE DEMO DAYS In 2016, the band started recording the demo «Storming with vengeance». Upon release via bandcamp, the offers for a record deal came raining in. The band signed a deal with “Bifrost Records” from Sweden to release a tape yersion of the demo on a limited black and white edition. At the same time, the band made a deal with the Australian label “Heavy Chains Records” for a red and black version of the same tape. Both versions got sold out fast. August the same year, the band did their debut show at the Kolbotn centric music festival “Hellbotn”. We then did various gigs like Krater Fest, Heavy Nights fest, Black Viper/Ranger at Revolver and BlackViper/Vampire/Antichrist also at Revolver. Somewhere along the way, Christoffer Bråthen left the band, but not before recording the bass lines for the upcoming album. The band went into the studio to record their debut album that was going to be released under the wings of High Roller Records. HRR had contacted the band soon after the release of the demo so that they could get the rights for the release for the album which eventually took two years to record..
Hellions of Fire
ALbum and shows
HELLIONS OF FIRE ALBUM AND SHOWS As the band spent their time in the studio, a new bassist; Kato Marchant joined the ranks. The album «Hellions of fire» finally came out September 2018 to rave reviews and great reactions from fans and critics alike. After a few set of shows, Kato Marchant decided to leave the band. The album kept gathering positive reviews, even earning the title of “Album of the year” by the Norwegian radio show “Jernverket” and some more festival jobs followed. Marcus Sellevold Bøe Joined the band in 2019 just in time for the band to start playing live. The band played their first show outside of Norway at The Abyss Festival in Gothenburg. this gave them more clout in the international scene as a force to be reckoned with. The show in Sweden was followed by a couple more shows in Sweden followed by shows in Austria and Romania, before once again playing in their home city of Oslo at the Tons of rock festival. the band managed to do one more show abroad before the pandemic hit at the Live Evil Festival in London.
The Future
Solitary Gates
The band kept writing and recording pre-prods for their second album titled «Solitary gates» through 2020/21, which hopefully will be recorded rather sooner than later. It will be more epic, varied, heavier, faster and even more metal than «Hellions of fire». During the pandemic, they also got to play the Heavy Nights festival in Haugesund once more and be part of a secret Halloween show in the woods of Hobøl, Norway. In March 2021, Arild decided to focus completely on his two main bands Nekromantheon and Obliteration and left Black Viper. With no gigs in sight for the near future and only the new album to concentrate 110% on, Black viper carries on as a three-piece with Cato in addition to drums also now playing guitar and bass, and Marcus adding guitars to his arsenal.
Beware The Solitary Gates…