Album Notes

Eternal Ryte formed in the spring of 1984 and started out as a very underrated and overlooked band. Emerging from the vastly growing Southern California Christian Metal scene in the mid-eighties, Eternal Ryte was initially put together by founding members guitarist Bobby “Transformer” Smith, bassist Jon Ciccareli and drummer Mike Berry. An ad in the Recycler soon would lead them to vocalist Phil Garcia (who would later change his name to Phil St. Vincent) When Ciccareli and Berry would later decide to call it quits after a few years, the band would round out it’s line up with drummer Scott “Smash” Ernest and bassist Fred Gustafsson.

The band were already seasoned veterans at this point with many individual accomplishments under their belts. Bobby would be invited to audition for the Ozzy Osbourne band soon after the departure of Jake E. Lee. Scott had laid down drum tracks for the debut release from Angelica. Phil had already toured the US and Europe and Fred had studied music for seventeen years. The best way to describe their sound together as Eternal Ryte would be glam metal adding an above average guitar driven sound, combined with a very bold and upfront message. Eternal Ryte would go on to become regulars in the Hollywood circuit playing all the hot spots including The Whiskey, The Roxy, The Troubador and even Gazarri’s. As well the band would take part in many of the major Christian Music Festivals taking place in the late 80’s and early 90’s including Metal Mardi Gras, Metal Midnight and Metal Meltdown to name a few. Some of those performances were captured live and have been locked away for many years, until now. Some of these historic performances from the bands heyday have been remastered, restored and included here on this release for the very first time.

Eternal Ryte would put out two independent demos before they caught the eyes of a major label and would ultimately sign a deal with Pure Metal Records in 1990. Their first demo was released in 1986 and was untitled and contained no cover artwork or credits and featured four songs. Seven songs were originally recorded during these sessions, but only four would be used for this demo. This cassette only demo would never be officially released but used to shop around to various labels. The four tracks featured on this demo were Armed for Action, Fight for the Light, Quiet Times and Winners Take All . Not included at the time were He’s a Killer (Version 1), Run for your Life and a brief Intro track. All Seven of these tracks are available here on anthology for the very first time on CD and completely remastered.

The second demo was 1988’s Anthem demo with a melodic metal sound that would draw comparisons to the likes of Stryper, Dokken and Loudness. This demo was released on cassette only and this time around the band included some artwork and liner notes using some now infamous caricatures of themselves that many would grow to relate to the band for years to come. This demo would be shopped and also sold at shows. This demo would contain six tracks including Anthem, No Place To Hide, Forever Free, He’s a killer, King of Kings and No More Lies. All of which are included on this release and also on CD for the very first time.