Albuquerque’s Metal Powerhouse ILLUMINA A.D. Returns with “Suffer”

Debuts New Lineup

Illumina A.D. breaks back into the scene in serendipitous fashion. As though this band’s name truly represents the journey traveled across a decade, Light after death.

After a hiatus from the public, founders Alexander Bane and Justin Cavis continued working and in 2019 found their commanding vocalist, Jerry Cappadona Jr.. At that moment, they saw a new direction and rebirth of the fire that pressed the band forward. As the new trio began reworking through some of Alexander’s expansive compositions, new bassist and brother to Jerry, Kenny Cappadona, joined—bringing his wild seven string bass and deeply technical approach to groove with him.

Rounding out this quintet is face-melting melodic-shredmaster, Justin Ennis. The addition of bassist and lead guitar of the highest echelon caliber has completely rounded and filled out Bane’s thrash opuses.

Beneath the growing catalogue of these lifelong musicians is a simmering chaos reined in by front man Jerry Cappadona Jr., bringing a dynamic sense of melody and dramatic flair. The complexity of Bane’s writing is only amplified by the poetry and observations of Cappadona. This first release of this maniacal quintet “Suffer” takes no prisoners and from the first moment grabs at the listener, brash and greedily. Paired with their self-produced video, the song rains dramatically on the viewer with an aural assault and teases of the outright lunacy brought to live stages. “Beautiful and brutal” has been said of this band’s previous incarnations—may have been true before, now as this cadre of madmen there is no doubt.”

Alexander “Bane” Lackey explains, “‘Suffer’  is the first music to be released with our new lineup. The video is self-produced. I directed and edited it myself . I shot the video on June 18th during a private show we put on for a select few friends and family – out in the New Mexico desert during a monsoon rainstorm. It was our first show since September 2017, when we played a benefit show for victims of Hurricane Harvey.”

Alexander Bane continues with “‘Suffer’ is such an important song to me for so many reasons. Not only does ‘Suffer’ represent the growth and the survival of the band in the face of insurmountable odds; but its also manifestation of all the hard work and incredible luck it took to completely rebuild my life from scratch, after enduring an insane amount of personal tragedy and turmoil. ‘Suffer’ is the song we used to audition Jerry as our singer. I remember he came in, and he had this chorus, which is the chorus you hear on the song now, and I remember listening to it initially and thinking “he took the toxicity and the abuse and all the ugliness everyone deals with and he romanticized it in a way that caught me completely off guard. I loved it instantly.”

Vocalist Jerry Cappadona, Jr. says “I wrote this as an exploration of a couple in the throws of a tumultuous and willingly violent relationship. ‘You are my weakness. I am your scars. I am your weakness. You are my scars. Now smile. Smile. As the Suffering starts.’ When Alexander and I finished recording the first scratch vocal tracks, he slowly pulled off his headphones, looked into space a few moments and deadpan said to me. “Dude….. that was romantic….. you’re a fucking sick person.”

Justin Cavis adds “This song to me is the perfect example of suffering. It took us years to get everything down, (mostly because of line up changes and working out the perfect parts and also some of the things we went through as a band during the recording process), and to come out with a result that is finally satisfactory and with band members that actually have a passion for the song and all music that we are working on. I’m sure some of that suffering might not end completely but it surely has to be easier than what we went through to get this song to where it is today. It’s truly the end result of all the suffering we went through. It’s also a bad ass song because of all that work.

Justin Ennis says “‘Suffer’ to me represents the low points in life that you have to overcome to to get to the better things. You have to suffer through low points in order to grow and become a better ‘you’. You cannot grow until you shed your skin of the things that are holding you back. We suffer by doing the things that hurt us in order for things to be better in the end. Sometimes we have to make others suffer by ridding ourselves of them if they are holding us back or damaging us in some way.”

Kenny Cappadona reveals  “To me it’s a song about our innate draw to the darkness and the suffering it brings, but can we learn to get by if we learn to have scars? By learning to live and forgive who we are.”

Nathan Joseph, who co-produced, recorded and mixed shares “A great song sticking to the traditions of arena/thrash metal with some twists. The song intros on a subdued section, then bursts to life; all the while maintaining intensity and fluidity throughout. If you like heavy guitars, big choruses, and screaming leads, you have found your place. Been a pleasure working with all the members in Illumina AD. Honorable mention to Alexander Bane for continuous involvement up to the final day of mastering.”

“Suffer” was engineered /mixed by Nathan Joseph at Liquid Halo Studios in ABQ,NM. Mastering was performed by Tony Lingren at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden.”

Get “Suffer” here:  https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/illuminaad/suffer

Spotify: “Suffer”

Apple Music: “Suffer”

Amazon: “Suffer”

YouTube Music: “Suffer”

“I grew up on Metal. When I was 7 years old, I listened to “The Unforgiven,” by Metallica, and I was hooked on metal ever since. James Hetfield has always been my biggest inspiration, and metal my biggest passion. I also draw a lot of inspiration from Melodic Death Metal bands. Soilwork being my favorite. Followed by In Flames, Amon Amarth, and bands like Sylosis, Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, AC/DC and a ton of other bands that run the gamut from classic rock to modern metal.

I am a self taught guitar player and have been playing for 17 years. I do not consider myself a great musician. I just love writing music.”  – Alexander Bane

“I’ve been playing for 22 years, my influences are Pantera, Megadeth, Metallica, Children of Bodom, System of a Down, Kiss, Foghat, Iron Maiden, Grand Funk Railroad, Exodus, Dream Theater, Motley Crue, Dio, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Rush, August Burns Red, and Slayer. I love Vinny Appice, Vinny Paul, Neal Peart, Nicolas McBrain, Tom Hunting, Taylor Hawkins, Ian Paice, John Bonham, Bill Ward and I could go on, but I won’t. My style is me.”  – Justin Cavis

“Been playing 22 years, influences are Marty Friedman, John Petrucci, Chris Impelliterri, Akira Takasaki, Inspired by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, style is melodic technical lead (I guess?), Not sure who I would compare to stylistically.  – Justin Ennis

“I’ve been playing bass for 27 years…playing music for 32 in total.  John Myung, John Patitucci, Stu Hamm, Billy Sheehan and Steve Harris are my main influences. Picking up bass was because my brother Jerry picked up guitar and also cuz I loved Mike Dirnt in Green Day back in the day.

My style is very classical influenced with melodic legato a mainstay on my riffs but playing live very much like Steve Harris and John Entwistle with my dwarf ham hock fingers thunder stomping the strings. As such I’d compare myself to Steve Harris or John Myung tryin to keep up with metal picking techniques via finger style.” –  Kenny Cappadona

“Raised on Americana in all its forms, rock, folk, blues, r&b, I fell in Love with Melodies as a child. Started studying music and instruments in grade school, to hear my father tell the story, I played a solo in a elementary band performance and he said ‘you could see the applause had changed him.’

15th birthday I was given two of the greatest gifts ever, a guitar and a ticket to see Kiss live on the full make up reunion. From then on I was full bore head down going to figure this shit out. Went to a performance high school studying various forms of music and performance and took off early to study the same at a conservatory in New York City, graduating at 19 years old. In the following years I delved as deeply as possible into any, ANY, stage that I could force my way onto. I’ve never given a shit what the performance was as long as I could set fire to myself and burn under the lights. Seriously, from Shakespeare to tap dancing egg asshole to folk rock solo guy and all the weirdness in between. Fast forward 20 years and several countries later I am reunited with my brother for this project in Illumina A.D. I’ve had the honor of working for and with some truly prodigious musicians and there isn’t a close second to the depths of what Kenny knows and does. Truly a sick individual. This project has allowed for the writing of darker poetry and bringing to life melodies within Alexander’s epic lyrics painted canvases. Looking forward to exploring the various ‘touches of grey’ that fill out our silver linings. Kenny, Alexander, Justin 1, Justin 2, let’s fucking go. ”  – Jerry Cappadona, Jr.

Illumina A.D. is:

Singer: Jerry Cappadona, Jr.

Lead Guitarist: Justin Ennis

Rhythm Guitarist: Alexander Bane

Drummer: Justin Cavis

Bassist: Kenny Cappadona

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Albuquerque’s Metal Powerhouse