The Undiscovered: Profana

Influenced by guitarists such as Jason Becker, Marty Friedman, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Stanley Jordan and Jimi Hendrix, guitarist Walter Santu spearheads another one of the more interesting progressive metal bands coming out of Italy these days, Profana. They submitted a five song instrumental demo on CD-R, entitled Soul Path, which offers total heaviosity, tons of blazing lead lines, ever changing moods and textures - all in a demo they put together in six hours. This group needs a label; they feature Francesco Pastore on keyboards, Giuseppe Voltarella on bass, and Christian Assab on drums, in addition to the frightening fast fingers of Santu. No one could listen to this stuff and say these guys are not headed in the right direction - solid compositions that a seasoned producer/engineer could do wonders with.

The band Profana traces its beginnings all the way back to October of 1995 (before there was a Guitar Nine), when a group of 15-year-old music lovers began playing together. Heavily influenced by the thrash and death metal music that was popular in the 1980s, the group eventually found their way to recording and circulating two demos, "New Age Killer" and "The Wind Below", through which they found fame and notoriety in their home city. Back then, Federico Mari was in the group, providing rhythm guitar and voice. Since then, nine years have passed, and Profana has refined their musical knowledge and technique, discovering progressive rock, fusion, jazz - and with them, a totally new and fascinating way of making music.

Profana states that they have a lot more songs and ideas to be explored on the way in the near future.

Walter Santu
Italy

Web site: www.profana.it