Party Music for Graveyards

On 12 February the band posed for the studio photographs of "Dig Up for the Party", the four-song EP that would present the coming album to the press.

"Dig Up for the Party" came out on 23 March, given away exclusively at the London show the band headlined at the Electrowerkz: "Velvet", "Better Down", "Somebody to Love" and a cover of the Ramones' "Pet Sematary", a song that would close their concerts for years.

On 5 April bloody.it went online in its eleventh version. It would be the last for a while: by June 2008 the domain simply led to the band's MySpace page.

The summer changed the line-up that had lasted since 2000: on 6 July LaRouge, the bass player who had started the band with Stranger, left for personal reasons. On 18 July the video of "Drops" went up on MySpace, subtitled "Are you ready for the new Blood?".

On 1 October Stranger moved from guitar to bass, taking LaRouge's place, and for a few weeks Bloody Mary played as a four-piece with a single guitar, LaMountain's.

As a four-piece they closed the year on stage: the Bloody Night at the Alcatraz in Milan (10 November) and Gothunder at the Thunder Road in Codevilla, with Musashiden (18 November).

On 7 December G_Drone joined as the new guitarist, alongside LaMountain.

With the new line-up — Aldebran on vocals, LaMountain and G_Drone on guitars, Stranger on bass, Jürgen on drums — Bloody Mary spent 2008 on stages at home and abroad. On 23 March they played the Gotham 9 Festival at Dingwalls in Camden Lock, alongside Gothminister, Star Industry, Psyche, Novus UK, RazorBladeKisses and Dyonisis.

On 1 May they took part in the Metal Labour Day at the Music Drome in Milan, with Novembre, Nemesis Inferi and Portrait of Tears; Metal Italia described a band that knew "how to hold a stage, backed by a chemistry that has now lasted eight years", forty minutes of gothic rock closed by "Pet Sematary".

On 13 July the band posed for the promotional photographs of the second album, "Party Music for Graveyards": the group, and portraits of its members.

In August the band travelled to Sardinia for two summer dates, in Olbia (16 August) and on the Poetto beach in Cagliari (19 August).

On 20 September Bloody Mary played Berlin for the first time, at the Kulturbrauerei-Maschinenhaus, with Masters of Dark Fire as special guests — a night the flyer announced as "Ich bin ein Berliner", of which a live video survives. Behind the concerts, the work on the second album went on.

"Dig Up for the Party" had prepared the ground for the second album: Roxx Zone called it "an excellent appetiser, ideal to quench the thirst for blood and rock and roll of all the vampires anxiously awaiting the Italian quintet's second record".

The concerts of 2009 were few but big. On 20 February the band played the Hellhounds Fest at the Estragon in Bologna with Tiamat, The 69 Eyes and Ava Inferi; four days later it opened for Deathstars and Sonic Syndicate at the Music Drome in Milan.

On 1 March Metal Italia's report of the Music Drome night found the band "now completely at home on stage", the fans in the front rows singing along to "Icy Blue" and "Little Sister". On 22 March the site came back in its twelfth version, built on Joomla.

That spring Bloody Mary recorded their second album, produced and recorded by Aldebran at the Vor-Daran Productions studio in Milan. Online, the band opened its YouTube channel on 11 June, and on MySpace it published the lyrics and credits of "Blood'N'Roll".

That autumn the new album was mixed at MoonHouse with Danilo "Stonehenge" Di Lorenzo. On 1 November, close to midnight, Bloody Mary were back on the stage of the Alcatraz in Milan.

On 6 January the band created its Google account. The second album, mixed in the autumn, was waiting for its mastering.

In the spring the album was mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox in Helsinki. On stage the year began at the Italian New Order Festival at the Siddharta in Prato, with Hellfire Society and Babylonia (17 April).

On 1 May Valery Records put "Velvet" on "La Belle Alliance Compilation 2010". On 28 May the band played an acoustic showcase at the Hollywood in Milan.

A date at The Dark Place Festival in Tutow, Germany, planned for 12 June, was cancelled. On 15 June Valery Records' "Rock'N'Roll Compilation Volume 1" carried "Before You Fade", three months before the album.

The new album's summer opened in the press and online: on 18 July Ritual interviewed Aldebran, on 25 July the band opened its Facebook page, and on 27 July Aldebran was Davide Biagini's guest on Rock di Sera, in a video interview.

In August Germany's Aurora Borealis published its interview with Aldebran. The German press — Zillo, Sonic Seducer, Orkus — would give the band ample space.

"Party Music for Graveyards" came out on 7 September 2010 on Valery Records, distributed by Frontiers/Edel: twelve songs, with a cover painted by Marco Hasmann, photographs by Lazarus, and Medea, Antonio Magrini and Emiliano Sicilia as guests. Its title came from the Kerrang review of "Blood'N'Roll" five years earlier. As with the debut, the story is told by what Aldebran called a "didactic concept": not stated by the lyrics but by the sounds, the instruments and the details of the artwork. "Blood'N'Roll" had been set in 1890, at the end of the Bohemian age; the new album follows a scientist, set just before the Second World War, who goes mad at the loss of his beloved wife and tries to bring her back to life with parts recovered from graveyards — a story inspired by Giovanni Aldini, the Italian proto-scientist who inspired Mary Shelley. The theremin, the Hammond and other electro-mechanical sounds stand for the electricity of his experiments. The album closes with the Ramones' "Pet Sematary"; the singles chosen were "Gettin' Older" and "Better Down".

The first reviews came with it — Metallus 8 out of 10, Metal.it 7.5, Ver Sacrum, Germany's Reflections of Darkness 7, Austria's Stormbringer 3 out of 5 — and on 10 September, announced by SpazioRock, the band presented the album with a long night at the Black Circus — the former Quinte Club — in Milan, with Magnitudo 8. At the end of the month Ver Sacrum interviewed the band.

The reviews went on through October. Hooked on Music in Germany found that the album "develops more and more of a quirky charm", Roxx Zone called it "the ideal continuation" of the debut, HardSounds gave it 82, and even the most critical, like Metal Italia's 6.5, recognised a professional band; Metallus and SpazioRock interviewed the band. On 4 October the site reached its thirteenth version, with a shop of its own. On 31 October the band played the Legend 54 in Milan, today's Legend Club.

On 12 November the band brought the album to the Rock'n'Roll in Milan in an acoustic showcase. On 7 November Dark Italia looked back at "Blood'N'Roll" (8 out of 10), and on 26 November "Velvet" reached Germany on Batbeliever's "Gothic Compilation Part XLIX".

On 12 December Dark Italia gave the album 8 out of 10.

The Party Music for Graveyards tour went on into 2011. On 21 January Aldebran was interviewed on video by Faccio Rumore, and on 28 January the band played the Black Hole in Milan for the first anniversary of the Circus Night.

On 19 March the band played the Imaginarium Night at the Faster in Moncalieri. On 24 March it published the two parts of the "Medley Sperimentale dello Scienziato Pazzo" — "the mad scientist's experimental medley": an instrumental medley of the whole album set to a video medley, made for a performance a month later.

On 24 April came one of the most unusual nights in the band's history: at the Black Moon Festival at the Zoe Club in Milan, Aldebran performed alone, singing the whole album over the medley and its video.

In its May–June issue the British magazine Fireworks reviewed the album, predicting that "this talented ensemble will soon carve their own path within today's ever-evolving goth metal scene". On 6 May G_Drone left the band.

On 1 July Dave joined as the new guitarist, next to LaMountain.

On 28 August Ver Sacrum announced the band's return to London, with a guest from Cradle of Filth.

On 3 September Bloody Mary headlined a special night at the Electrowerkz in London, organised by Flag Promotion and Black Circus with Cryogenica, Calatrilloz and Die Kur: they played the whole of "Party Music for Graveyards" for the first time in the UK, and Dave Pybus of Cradle of Filth, the man who had released their debut, joined them on stage for "Pet Sematary".

On 18 September the band shot the videoclip of "Somebody to Love", released the following June. Back in Italy it played the Circus Night 2011 at the Amnesy in Lainate (23 September), where it was interviewed on video.

The year closed with two very different nights. On 10 December came Aqstiko — "in vino veritas" — at the Enoteca Huaxia, a wine bar in Milan, with Roberta Carrieri: a set for acoustic guitar and voice alone, LaMountain and Aldebran, the songs rearranged for the occasion, streamed live by radio, with Davide Biagini of Rock di Sera interviewing the two on stage between one song and the next. On 23 December came the X-Mas party at the Amnesy in Lainate, with On/Off.

In 2012 Bloody Mary took "Party Music for Graveyards" further across Italy, starting at the Target Club in Bari with Insex and Private Hill (20 January).

Meanwhile the third album was taking shape: on 26 February the band shot the first promotional photographs of "Anno Zero", whose visual concept — uniforms, ruins, a twentieth century that never ended — was developed during the year.

On 10 March the band played the RockOnTheRoad in Desio, with Holy Shire.

The Theatre Club in Rozzano, south of Milan, became a regular stage for the band that year, starting with the Masquerade Night with Con Cura and Sell System (13 April). On 26 April the band shot the photographs of the "Anno Zero" press kit.

On 20 May came another acoustic night, AperiQstiko, at the Circolo delle Arti in Mariano Comense.

On 8 June the band was back at the Theatre Club for the Gothic Room with Sigue Sigue Sputnik; the next day it released the videoclip of "Somebody to Love", and on 16 June the site reached its fourteenth version.

On 12 October the band played the Theatre Club again, at the Before Autumn Fest with Clan of Xymox, Rosa Rubea and Neiv.

On 16 December the band celebrated its label's anniversary at the Valery Records 10 Years Night at the Factory in Milan.