Unleashed Memories

Century Media's account has the band shutting themselves away to write their second full-length until they were completely sure of the songs. In October 2000 the six went back to Woodhouse Studios in Hagen, their third visit, with Waldemar Sorychta again producing. The record holds nine new songs and a different version of "Senzafine" from Halflife, and it was finished in November. The label described the aim as a sharper record than the restrained EP, with the guitars pushed forward. Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro sang, Cristiano Migliore and Marco Biazzi played guitars, Marco Coti Zelati bass and keyboards, and Cristiano Mozzati drums. Coti Zelati wrote nearly all of the music, joined by Migliore and Biazzi on "Purify" and by Migliore on "Wave of Anguish". Scabbia wrote most of the lyrics, with Ferro contributing to "To Live Is to Hide", "Senzafine" and "Wave of Anguish". Sorychta, Siggi Bemm and Matthias Klinkmann engineered. The metal sun on the cover, Scabbia has said, was a sun-shaped Mexican mirror the band happened to have. The album had been expected in March, but in Europe it arrived early, in January 2001, and the band hurried out on a European tour with Theatre of Tragedy and Beseech; in March and April they were on the Metal Odyssey 2001 tour with Dimmu Borgir, In Flames, Nevermore and Susperia. The American edition, out in March, ran to fifteen tracks with the five songs of Halflife added. The 2005 reissue added "Lost Lullaby", the bonus track of the 2002 limited edition of Comalies.