Azarath

All Music Guide:

Azarath is a supergroup of sorts, culling its ranks from leading lights in Polish death metal. The single-named members include Inferno (Behemoth, Damnation, Witchmaster) on drums, Bart (Damnation, Anima Vilis, Cenotaph) and Thrufel (Yattering, Shadows Land, Masachist) on guitars, and Bruno (Damnation, Convent) on bass and vocals. With resumés spanning dozens of recordings outside Azarath, the members bring extensive experience to the band's brutal, highly Satanic, old-school death metal. With a fairly regular recording and touring schedule, Azarath should be viewed not as a side project, but as a substantial force in its own right.

The band began in 1998 as a trio comprised of Inferno, Bruno, and a guitarist simply named "D." Two demos, Traitors and Promo 2000, ensued in 1998 and 2000, respectively, before the band issued its first full-length, Demon Seed, in 2001. The album saw Bart rounding out the lineup on guitar. Positive response to the record led to a support slot touring with Vader in 2002. In 2003, the band released the aptly titled Infernal Blasting, after which D. left the band for personal reasons and was replaced by Thrufel. Death Monsters, a split with countrymen Stillborn, followed in 2004, collecting tracks from the Promo 2000 demo. A third studio album, Diabolic Impious Evil, emerged in 2006 on Polish metal bastion Pagan Records. The band then supported Vader once again, alongside Vesania and Trauma on the Polish dates of the Blitzkrieg 4 tour. The following year found Azarath teaming up with compatriots Stillborn and Deception for the Legions of Attack 2007 tour in Poland.

Wikipedia:

Azarath (sometimes referred to as "The Temple Azarath") is a fictional dimension featured in the Teen Titans comic book series and animated series. It is the birthplace of the character Raven.

Fictional history [edit]

Over 900 years ago, the followers of the first Azar were led to a place between all dimensions where they founded the Temple Azarath. It was Azar's plan to expel all evil from the Azarathians so that the demon Trigon could use the dark energy to be fully re-established, and then Azar could finally kill him once and for all.

The dimension was destroyed by Trigon's forces when he finally got control of his daughter, Raven. However, all the inhabitants' souls survived, but were corrupted by the temporary merger with and destruction of Trigon. However after the events of the Titans Hunt storyline, they were purified and guided into another plane of existence by the third Azar. The souls that remained eventually became the second incarnation of Phantasm.

One Year Later [edit]

After the One Year Later jump in DC Comics, Bumblebee mentions "New Azarath". Kid Devil and Zachary Zatara also discuss a trip to New Azarath in which the latter was nearly eaten by the Phantasm.

In other media [edit]

In the cartoon series, the character Raven invokes the name of Azarath in her chants to summon and focus her powers ("Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!", to be exact). She left this pacifist society in another dimension to try to leave her demon heritage behind and become good by joining the Teen Titans, but she fears that her inbred evil is lying just under the surface.

In the episode "Switched" of Season One, Raven tells Starfire that she was born in a place called Azarath, but Raven does not specify that she, in fact, lived there. And during Season Four of Teen Titans, Raven visits a place she refers as Azarath in the episode, "The Prophecy," to seek help from the spirit of her mother, Arella. However, the place is deserted and is later revealed to be an illusion left behind after Trigon supposedly destroyed it, which possibly implies that the "visit" Raven took was a spiritual or telepathic one, though no confirmation exists.