The story of Red Queen began not with a debut record, or even with that name. In the late 2000s, Russian vocalist and keyboardist Elena Vladimirova, who adopted the stage name Elena Vladi, launched the project Demona Mortiss. The music was heavy and deliberately bleak: experimental black metal was mixed with Gothic elements, doom, and electronic textures. Elena was joined by guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Crisci and drummer Trent Gouveia. The project never produced a full-length album, but songs such as “Lost,” “Inverted Heaven,” and the live recording “Phasmophobia” from Hollywood’s Viper Room survived.
Then the musicians abruptly changed course. In place of symphonic coldness and black-metal theatricality came choppy guitar parts, synthetic bass, industrial noise, and catchy choruses. In 2013, the name Demona Mortiss disappeared from social media, giving way to Red Queen; June 2014 is generally considered the official starting point for the new band. In essence, this was not a cosmetic name change, but a complete renovation of the project.
Red Queen was built around Elena Vladi and Patrick Crisci. Elena handled the vocals, lyrics, synthesizers, and visual concept, while Crisci recorded the guitars, bass, and drums, worked with electronics, and handled the studio production. Guest guitarist Grey Soto appeared on some recordings, but Red Queen never developed a stable quartet or quintet. It was a studio duo that looked like a full rock band in its videos.
This format provided freedom. It also created limitations. By the mid-2010s, alternative metal had already passed its commercial peak: Korn and Slipknot had long been playing arenas, Marilyn Manson was gradually losing his former sense of danger, and younger acts were trying to cross nu metal with deathcore and electronic music. Red Queen fit precisely into that gap. Their material was built on low-tuned riffs, mechanical rhythms, and the contrast between whispers, melodic singing, and Vladi’s sharp extreme vocals.
The band’s main calling card became “Asyphyx.” Its first version was recorded back in 2012, when the transition from Demona Mortiss to the new sound was only beginning. In August 2014, the musicians filmed a video, then uploaded it to their official YouTube channel in December. The provocative imagery of skin, chains, and a red-and-black color scheme left no room for half-measures. The video surpassed one million views—a notable result for an independent project without a major touring operation or steady rock-radio support.
The visual image sometimes overshadowed the music, however. People discussed Elena’s model-like appearance and the erotic direction of the videos almost as often as the arrangements. This is nothing new for the metal scene. Red Queen, for their part, consciously played by those rules: sexuality was part of the overall aesthetic, alongside occult symbolism, cosmic imagery, and the industrial sterility of the sound.
At the beginning of April 2016, the debut EP “Star Blood” was released. It contained five compositions: “Asyphyx,” “Naked,” “Star Ruby,” “Insidious,” and “Alchemy.” The digital edition was supplemented by a cover of U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me,” originally recorded for the soundtrack to the 1995 film “Batman Forever.”
The material was created almost entirely as a family operation. Elena Vladi and Patrick Crisci wrote and produced the songs together; Elena recorded the vocals and prepared the lyrics, while Patrick performed the guitar, bass, and drum parts. They divided the keyboards, samples, and synthesizers between them. Crisci also handled the recording, mixing, and mastering at Harsh World Studio. The cover was designed by Mark Perceval-Maxwell, Vladi, and Crisci. There was no parade of famous guest stars. Everything rested on two people.
The EP runs for less than twenty minutes, but both of the project’s biographies can be heard inside it. “Asyphyx” and “Insidious” lean toward nu-metal groove, “Naked” leaves more space for electronics and vocals, while “Star Ruby” returns to the occult and cosmic vocabulary of the Demona Mortiss era. The lyrics are filled with poison, blood, planets, fallen stars, and bodily metaphors. Sometimes the effect is striking. Sometimes there is so much darkness that it seems wise to switch on the emergency lighting.
A separate video was prepared for “Insidious,” but “Star Blood” was not followed by a major album-length continuation. The official pages continued to describe Red Queen as an active project for a long time, but the discography remained compact. The duo presented neither a stable live lineup nor a series of full-length releases. As a result, Red Queen’s biography looks more like the story of a carefully staged flash than a long career arc.
On Bandcamp, a short phrase still appears beside the band’s name: “ALL HAIL RED QUEEN.” Below it are the same five “Star Blood” tracks recorded by Elena Vladi and Patrick Crisci in 2016. The crown remains in place. The court, it seems, emptied long ago.
