NIGHTREAPER

Nightreaper are:
MM.Scarbee – bass
Eric Martins-Guerra – drums
Thierry Soulivet – guitars, keyboards
Frédéric Giraud – guitars, vocals (backing)
Fred Caramia – vocals

After leaving the band Lightning (ex Stormbringer), where Thierry Soulivet had played for a while as bass player, alongside drummer Remy Legendre (ex Marienthal) and a certain Stephane Graziani on the vocals, the idea of creating his own band became more and more obvious for him.
His studies at the faculty of Sciences at the University of Rouen (Normandy), then his years of studies in Musicology (also at Mont Saint Aignan) didn’t bring him complete satisfaction.
While continuing his interlude as a bass player in the cover band Dragonhead in his native French area of Eure (Vernon), the desire to play again his favorite instrument, the electric guitar, would henceforth mobilize all his energy in songwriting and composition for the first songs of his new project band Nightreaper (Moissonneur de la Nuit) as ‘The Call Of The Reaper’, ‘Edge Of Time’, Shadows Of The Past’, ‘Something Inside Me’.
Helped by a high school friend to write some lyrics, the also set up the visual design of the project.
The melodic heavy metal music of Nightreaper is born in 1987, with the project to achieve a single.
This will be done in the beginning of 1988 with ‘Heroes Die Young’ (now a rare item).
As mentioned previously. Thierry Soulivet, founder and guitarist of the band was the main composer and the first feedback on the specialized press about the single was exellent.
To record the two songs of the single ‘Heroes Die Young’ and the power ballad ‘Shadows Of The Past’, Thierry recruited Fred Giraud no known as Mister Noisy (guitar), Stephane Graziani (vocals, bass) and Arnaud Mortrelli (drums).
The first member to leave the band was the drummer which was replaced by Eric Martins-Guerra who was already present in the studio during the reordings and joined the band in spring 1988.
The band will refine its set-list with songs like ‘Strange Land’, ‘Love Chains’, ‘The Race’ among others and followed by concerts, various band sets and festivals, whose first show took place in the famous club Les Templiers in Normandy with a warm welcome of the audience.
In 1990, Mister Noisy, wishing to realize other musical projects far from the area left the band and was replaced by Philippe Cordier native from the South of France who came to settle in Normandy.
In the meantime, the complexity of performing the pieces required the recruitment of a new musician.
Pascal Have, bass player, inspired by the way of playing of the famous Steve Harris joined the band in the spring of 1990.
As soon as the set list was defined, the band played concerts throughout the year.
After a few months of collective work, the time came for the band to have its own rehearsalroom and studio.
Nightreaper’s headquarters were thus established in Normandy in the Andelle valley.
Then, for reasons of unavailability, Stephane Graziani had to leave the band, and Florin Cioloca, Romanian singer came to settle in Rouen a few months before, who became lead vocalist to ensure continuity and next shows.
Then, for an administrative reason the line-up was modified, Florin, unable to renew his resident visa in France had to leave the band and return to his country.
A frontman, in the person of Fabrice Sollier, from the hard/metal scene of Lyon was confirmed as the new singer of Nightreaper in early 1992.
Fabrice travelled from Lyon to Normandy almost every week initially to rehearse and secondly for songwriting.
The result of this rigorous band work was the realization of the ‘Strange Land’ demo tape.
A contact is then established with the German label Onkine Music.
After a meeting in Hamburg with the team of the label and a period of reflection, it turned out that the conditions were not met for the band’s album to be properly produced and broadcast…
A decision that turned out to be the right choice because other bands who signed subsequently did not achieve the desired result…
Sweat Dreams!
From the beginnig of 1993, the band began a new songwriting work enhanced with keyboard parts while keeping the same line-up.
This effort gave birth to ‘We Get Wild’, a 4-track cassette, including the songs ‘Dreambreakers’, ‘I Close My Eyes’ and ‘Kill The Dealer’.
A new series of shows will follow, with an anecdotal tour in jails in Eastern France!
It was from this period that the great wave of heavy metal gradually began to be absorbed by other styles, causing a decline in the popularity of leaders band such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Helloween.
Despite everything, links were forged between Nightreaper and the English band Taurea, thus giving rise to commun tours in the United Kingdom and in France with a new bassist in person of Alain Acloque.
Some time later, Philippe Cordier, guitarist present since 1990, left the band, leaving his place to Jean-Pierre Brunier.
The lack of interest from labels and the diminishment of style in the media and on stage did not dampen the determination of the band, which launched itself into the pre-production of round ten new tracks in order to produce an album provisionally named ‘Last Metal Rebel’ before to take a break in 1994…
A lot of water has flowed on the dam since this break, Thierry Soulivet and Eric Martins-Guerra decided to sow again with Nightreaper.
In the meantime, in 1999 Eric formed the band Coverslave, a tribute to Iron Maiden. with Jean-Pierre Brunier, Pascal Have, Frederic Lebouette and Stephane Graziani.
Despite the pandemic, Thierry and Eric step by step found and collected the tapes from the time and began a long process of arranging and re-recording the tracks.
In order to provide the vocals parts, Fred Caramia, iconic singer of the band Coverqueen now called The World Of Queen, joined Nightreaper in spring 2020.
The latter had officiated with Eric in the bans The Faceless God from 2004 to 2005.
The first track to be broadcast is the emblematic song ‘Strange Land’ on which Fred Giraud aka Mister Noisy reunited with his friends after 23 years to record an epic song.
They also promised to tour together as soon as promotion of the album begins.
The second song ‘We Get Wild’ put online confirms the project of the new album ‘Strange & Wild’ which includes titles from the band’s back catalog but also new pieces currently in production evolving in a style that can be defined by melodic heavy power metal.
A more than promising come back of Nightreaper confirmed by the song ‘Strange Land’ already totaling 280k streams in one year on the soundcoud platform.
Have they invented a new proverb?
Who sows the wind reaps…streaming!