The Foreshadowing

by Alex Henderson
Characterized by songs that are dark, melancholy, pessimistic and full of gloom and despair, The Foreshadowing are among the many gothic metal bands that have come out of Italy. They have been compared to Depeche Mode more than once--and while Depeche Mode were never a metal band and were never goth in the classic Bauhaus/Sisters of Mercy sense, The Foreshadowing do share that band's sorrowful outlook and their knack for brooding melodies. Metal comparisons, meanwhile, have included My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost and Anathema. Quite a few of Italy's gothic metal bands have had female lead singers with ethereal, angelic vocal styles (the Milan-based Lacuna Coil being the most famous), but The Foreshadowing have opted to employ a male frontman, Marco Benevento, instead.
Exactly when The Foreshadowing got started is open to debate; one could trace their beginnings back to 1997, although The Foreshadowing didn't really become a full-fledged band (as opposed to merely an idea for a band) until the mid-2000s. It was in 1997 that guitarist Alessandro Pace, a.k.a. Alex Vega (b. May 20, 1977, Rome, Italy), decided to form a gothic metal band, but the name The Foreshadowing came later. The Foreshadowing is not the only band that Pace has been a part of; he has also been with the Rome-based alternative rock unit Klimt 1918 and the Rome-based industrial rock outfit Dope Stars, Inc., which he joined in 2005 and left in 2007. But The Foreshadowing is the band that has done the most to express Pace's gothic side, and he had a very goth agenda when, around 1998, he recruited guitarist Andrea Chiodetti (who has played with the band Grimness and is an ex-member of a band called Spiritual Front) and keyboardist Francesco Sosto (another former member of Spiritual Front). But for a long time, The Foreshadowing remained in the planning stages and didn't do the type of things that real bands normally do (such as touring, dragging instruments or amps into clubs or recording an album). The Foreshadowing finally started to feel like a real, honest-to-God band in the mid-2000s, when Pace (or Vega), Chiodetti and Sosto (who contributes backing vocals) were joined by drummer Jonah Padella (who has been with Grimess), bassist Davide Pesola (who has played alongside Pace in Klimt 1918) and lead singer Marco Benevento, a.k.a. Dust (who has also been the lead vocalist for an Italian gothic metal band called How Like a Winter). With that six-person lineup in place, The Foreshadowing recorded their debut album, Days of Nothing, in 2006; the album was released by Candlelight Records in both Europe and the United States in 2007.