Shardana was formed early in 2008 with the intent of creating a metal band with epic and battling sounds, merging a Heavy Metal sound with Black and Viking ones. Historically speaking, Shardana was the name of the Sardinian pirates who sailed the Mediterranean sea in the second millennium BCE.
Their history inspires the songwriting of the band to a large degree, and the lyrics are about the glorious courage and legendary pride of those people who contributed so much to increase the influence of Sardinia at the times of pharaoh Ramses or during the roman empire.
For this reason some of the songs are written in the Sardinian Language, such as: Sa Battalla (The Battle), Sa Sedda ‘e su Diaulu (Devil’s Saddle) and Bardanas (Raids). After a period of rehearsal the band started to play at some of the most important festivals on the island like “Heavy Sands Festival” in Cagliari alongside bands like Mnemic and Kaledon, “Eventi Metallici Fest 2011” with Destruction and Vision Divine and “Solk’n’Roll 2013” with Trick Or Treat and Hour Of Penance. In the middle of 2009 Shardana started recording their first self titled EP, released in March 2010.
After two years of promotional and live activities, the band started to work on their full length album. Mixed by Daniele and mastered by Ettore Rigotti (Disarmonia Mundi), “No Cadena, No Presoni, No Spada, No Lei” (No Chains, No Prisons, No Swords, No Laws) was released on 20 December 2014.
In the following years, the band kept working on a new album called "Milli Annos", changing the sound and songwriting adding more black metal influences. "Milli Annos" was recorded, mixed and mastered at Elnor Studio by Mattia Stancioiu (Labyrinth, Vision Divine). They also kept playing live, supporting Marduk and Jinjer at "Rock'n'Bol 2019" Festival.
Enter Summer 2020 and Shardana found a label to release "Milli Annos" in Rafchild Records from Germany. The album was released on October 9th 2020 digitally and on CD, with a possible LP release to follow later.
Epic is the least thing you can say about their songs. The music is great and very captivating. There is a lot of variation in it (not only talking about the tempo, but also in the vocals, instruments, language, ...). One good trick to appreciate the album: listen to it from beginning until the end and don't listen track to track, just let yourself immerse in the album and dive into their epic world!
