Sixteen years in and Rise Above Dead are still not done reshaping themselves. The Milan-based post-metal outfit — a band once tagged alongside Neurosis and Fall of Efrafa, known for monolithic slabs of sludge and hallucinogenic slow-burn — have announced that original vocalist Andrea Rondanini (formerly of Total Recall) has rejoined the lineup. It’s the first time the band will operate with vocals since “Stellar Filth” dropped in 2012.
The decision came out of a period that nearly killed the project entirely.
After the pandemic froze everything, Rise Above Dead released “Ulro” in August 2020 — a conceptual record rooted in William Blake’s mythology, an allegory about reason strangling creativity — into a world where nobody could play live. What followed was collapse. Longtime drummer Luca quit. Then bassist Diego, who’d been with the band since the beginning, walked. Suddenly it was just two guitarists staring at each other.
“We had to do some deep personal and psychological work to regain the spirit and energy to restart almost from zero,” the band says. They found new members, rehearsed for months, played a few shows — and then the new drummer quit too. Back to square one.
That grinding cycle forced a rethink. Not just about who plays what, but about what Rise Above Dead actually wants to be at this stage.
“We were also tired of something, we needed something fresh,” they explain. “You know, instrumental music is great and has its devoted fans, but it’s a niche. It’s very difficult to get booked.” Bringing vocals back wasn’t nostalgia — it was survival, and it was instinct. They called Andrea. He was free, and he was in.
For context: Rise Above Dead started in 2009 with a faster punk hardcore attitude — “Human Disintegration” (2010) and “Stellar Filth” (2012) were raw, direct, vocals-and-all. When Andrea moved to London in 2013 — initially for a few months, which turned into eight years — the band adapted. They tried other singers for a small EU tour, then tested a fully instrumental set opening for Voivod. “It felt great. That experience showed us a new path forward.”
That path produced “Heavy Gravity” (2015) and “Ulro” (2020) — records where the guitars had to carry everything.
Reviews described the band’s sound as brutality and ambience locked in the same room, with quietly building instrumentation and bass lines that sustain and throb beneath layered, effects-heavy guitar work. No voice to hide behind. Every pause, every echo, every repetition had to earn its place.
A decade of that kind of discipline doesn’t just vanish because someone picks up a microphone again.
“Now we’re writing with the same approach we developed as an instrumental band, but leaving space for the voice to fill those gaps,” they say. “The result is great — the tracks feel deeper, more solid, and more direct.”
The band — who’ve shared stages with Amenra, Pallbearer, and Russian Circles over the years — will enter the studio with Stefano Santi at Spvn Studio in the coming months to record new stuff. Live dates are already locked in: February 21 at Barrio’s in Milan with Cactus Mantra, and April 18 at Gagarin in Busto Arsizio for a Materia Oscura night alongside Sator and Rapa.
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Asked whether this version of Rise Above Dead is a continuation or something else entirely wearing the same name, the answer lands somewhere honest and unsentimental: “I don’t know. This project has faced many changes over the years. After 17 years, music remains our main driving force. People come and go. I don’t think we’re a parallel version of something — we’re like a creature that has mutated and evolved, keeping the same roots but with more awareness and maturity.”
Seventeen years of mutation. The voice is back. The creature keeps moving. Welcome back!
