Style: doom death metal
The musical direction of this band was at first to combine industrial-metal with psychedelic music, to create, along with other influences, a new style in Romanian rock. Along time, the band compositions started to sound more like gothic-doom. Currently, DinUmbra's style combines a wide range of influences as death, power, doom and gothic. The lyrics talk about inner states, created worlds of dreams, myths and social ideals
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SEBASTIAN
MIREL
CRISTIAN
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Sebastian Buga
Sebastian Buga
Mirel Cristea
Mirel Cristea
New York
Monica
Monica
Radu Alexandru
Radu Alexandru
Sorin Svetoslav
Sorin Svetoslav
Cristian
Cristian
Birth date: 23th of December 1977.
Sebastian founded DinUmbră together with Zareh in 1998. He plays heavy riffs without neglecting the melodic parts expressed through solos and sound effects that gets along well with psychedelic atmosphere.
Birth date: 1st of August 1973
Mirel joined DinUmbră in the autumn of the year 2000. He is the most technical band member. He has impressive speed, accuracy and an eruptive way of executing the breaks. He played with Zareh and Sebastian in the band named Walpurgia.
Birth date: 27th of February 1979
Monica joined DinUmbră in October 2017.
Birth date: 20th of April 1991.
Radu Alexandru joined DinUmbră on 28th of August 2023. A complex of emotions is the right term for defining the way he is expressed himself musically, sadness, love, anger and suffering being some of them. He combines screamo, fry and clean voice singing, making any song sound more enjoying.
Birth date : 15th of September 1975
Cleverly combining his "gothic" experience with doom and power metal elements, Sorin has managed to deliver safety and stability to the rhythmic section, also making his performance together with the other band members being a true harmony. He collaborates with the band since May of 2010, with a break between 2017 and 2023.
Birth date : 30th of June 1973
Being an adept of a natural sound, but "punchy" in the same time, he joined DinUmbră in July 2009. His heavy riffs and also the feelings expressed through his solos made him were the premises of a quick integration with the rest of the band, despide the fact that guitar wasn't his main instrument as he was playing at keyboard in another band.
Biography
In 1998 the band had only two members: Zareh and Sebastian. The two started the work on the debut album which was entirely written, recorded and produced by the band. They recorded the song "S-a sfârsit durerea-n noi" which was recorded in October of 1998 and mixed by Alex Dragomir and ended up on the first place on a Romanian radio station called Activ Fm. This radio exposure culminated with an article about the band published in Heavy Metal magazine. In May of 2000, DinUmbră recorded the demo "S-a sfârşit durerea-n noi" which contained 3 songs. The song "S-a sfârşit durerea-n noi" also appeared on the Romanian Metal Underground vol. II mixtape which was releaed in the year 2000 by Prodmusc Rec.. Everything was great, except the fact that the two members wished to play some live shows as they did with their previous band, Walpurgia in 1995 - 1996. New ideas were also to be explored so in order to complete the line-up George Dobre (bass) and Mirel C. (ex drummer from Walpurgia) came in. In 2001, the band finalized the album "DinUmbră" and participated at Top T Buzău festival for the first time.
In August 2002, DinUmbră signed a distribution contract with Bestial Records for the debut album, which was presented at Top T Buzău festival during next year, where the band played on the same stage with Celelalte Cuvinte.
In 2004, DinUmbră participated at their first tour called Metal Under Moonlight with Inactive Messiah (former Womb Of Maggots) from Greece and EQM(a project-band from Romania).
Also in 2004, a new member was added to the line-up: Anca C., the ex-keyboard player for Marsyas. This line-up shared the stage with Rotting Christ in March 2005 and also with Amatris (Germany).
The year 2006 brought new changes in the line-up. A more simpler approach was taken, the rhythm guitar was abandoned.
Zareh quit the band in order to complete his college studies at an university in Estonia. Thus a new singer came to fill in, Fane, which managed to quickly integrate into the band. With this line-up, DinUmbră played at Bucharest Metal Nights festival, sharing the stage with Misanthrope (France).
However, soon Zareh came back into the band, this time playing bass due to the departure of George, who could no longer face the demands of the band.
Only two shows were played in 2007 with the new line-up, however the 3 songs Ep entitled "Haunted by Snails" was succesfully released. Tensions within grew as Zareh and Anca were not satisfied with the recent developments and decided to leave DinUmbră. Despide these changes, both remained and departed members decided to try to finish the album together. Later on, Fane decided to give up playing shows with the band, restricting his collaboration only for the studio.
It took almost one entire year in order to start composing new songs and try to re-form the band by integrating new members. In 2008 only two members remained, Sebastian and Mirel. During this time, the recordings of the already writen songs continued.
In february 2009 Alexandru B. joined the band as vocalist. His low growl type of vocals helped the band attain a new level of heaviness, leading to further developments in terms of genre towards gothic doom and melodic death metal.
Cristian Stîlpeanu joined in July 2009 as the second guitarist.
In March 2010, Sebastian began writting songs for what would become the "Sântandrei" EP. Ovidiu C. (at that time in 9.7 Richter) recorded the bass on all the 3 songs. On the 6th of May 2010, the band played their first show with the new line-up, sharing the stage with Krow (Brazil). Andreas Nitu filled in as the live bass player for this show.
Eventually the band managed to find a permanent bass player, Sorin Tudor, an experienced gothic-metal bass player.
Once Sorin joined the band, he recorded the new bass tracks for the songs "A new world" and "Sântandrei" which came on the EP. The bass track for "Wolfsnake" remained the one recorded by Ovidiu.
"Sântandrei" was released in October 2011. The cover art was made by the band in collaboration with the photographer and graphical designer Andrei Cofas (andy.ddt.ro). For this artwork, the band drew inspiration from the belief of the Geto-Dacians.
At the end of 2011, Alexandru B. decided to leave the band, dedicating himself to other activities. Liviu became the new singer as of January 2012, after an audition organized by the band. With the new line-up the band could once again explore more melodic compositions due to the use of clean vocals used by the vocalist.
There followed a period of two years with many concerts in the capital and in other cities such as Braşov, Sibiu, Craiova, Constanţa, Câmpulung. In the summer of 2013, after a qualification in South semifinal of Wacken Metal Battle Romania competition, DinUmbră attended the contest "Rock the Park", organized by Phoenix Entainment, during that the band qualified for the final phase of the contest-festival, where it had the honor to play on the same stage with the legendary The Animals.
In April 2014, after a new qualification in South semifinal of Wacken Metal Battle Romania, DinUmbră qualified for the final of this competition in Sibiu.
In May, the band participated in the festival "1 Mai Rock Sibiu", where it shared the stage with Handful of Hate from Italy.
In parallel with playing live, recordings for the new album continued.
In May 2015, Cathar a first song from the upcoming album, Soul Of A Galaxy, went online on the official website and also on Youtube and Vimeo.In parallel with playing live, recordings for the new album continued and in the same year, on 1st of October, DinUmbra launched the second album of it's career, named Soul Of A Galaxy, distributed by Universal Music Romania, as digital material, and later by Bestial Records, as compact disk.
September 2016 was the month when DinUmbra played on the same stage with Novembre(ITA) and Isole(SWE).
Mirel Cristea left the band in March 2017, focusing more on his job. Sorin Tudor also left DinUmbra short time after that, focusing more on his other musical projects.
A new period o reconstruction began. Monica Barta joined DinUmbra as bass player in October 2017. She brought a more cleaner bass sound and also some melodic improvisations. It was very hard to find drummer with free time to play with the band and also to be able to play already recorded drum parts. In January 2018, Vlad Golgotiu joined the band as drummer, but only for a short time. DinUmbra did only a single show with Monica and Vlad in May 2018. Vlad recorded some draft drum tracks for two new songs in June 2018. After that, he left abroad with work and left the band. In September 2018, DinUmbra started a collaboration with Alex "Gomez" as session drummer and played live for the first time in January 2019.
Mirel Cristea came back to the band in May 2019 and played at Encore Metal Festival and also at the most important live appearance of the band, at Rockstadt Extreme Metal Fest 2019, sharing the stage with Paradise Lost and Katatonia.
1th of December 2022: Monica Barta announces her departure from the band after the launching show of upcoming album, "Finality".
A planned launch of the album "Finality" should happen during June 2023, but some members argued and the collaboration with Ioan Preda ended. The album lunch show remained unannounced. Also, collaboration with Monica Barta ended, due to the fact that the album lunch became not possible with the same members who recorded the album.
On 18th of June 2023, Sorin Tudor officially came back in DinUmbra's line-up as new bassist.
On 28th of August 2023, DinUmbra made a public announcement related to the appointment of Radu Alexandru as new band's new vocalist.
In October 2023, Sorin requested that his stage name appears Sorin Svetoslav.