August 12, 2005 marks the decade point since the first issue of CoC was mailed out to a tiny mailing list. You all know the story and for those of you who do not, you can find it on our history page. I don't want to make this editorial a long winded, weepy, nostalgic back-patting show piece, but rather I'd like to talk about the people that made it possible to survive ten years which have seen extensive changes to the music scene, the Internet and the world itself.

Sure enough, 1995 was a great year. There were a lot of great bands then, just as there are a lot of great bands now; and needless to say, there is some overlap in those two groups. We've praised bands who were quick to bite the dust and we've panned bands who would rise to impressive heights. Of course hindsight being 20/20, it's obvious that a lot of metal's greatest releases in 1995 were never covered in CoC, due either to our age or our naivety. That's why I'm pleased to announce a special article that we've compiled for our tenth anniversary issue. We've tasked our writers with going back in time to 1995 and reviewing albums released in that year that never saw the light of day in the pages of Chronicles of Chaos. I think you'll enjoy the interesting perspectives espoused in these reviews, in an article titled "What We Missed a Decade Ago".

If you asked me in 1995 whether I could see myself still involved in CoC in ten years, the answer would've been a heart-felt abso-fucking-lutely. Given the opportunity to answer the same question today, I wouldn't hesitate giving the same answer for an instant.

The staff has changed and evolved over the years; some of us who have been here from the beginning (myself and Brian) are still around. Some of us who are brand spanking new are doing a cracker of a job (thanks Todd) and others go above and beyond the call of duty by shouldering the majority of the writing burden in CoC (thanks Jackie). A lot of the staff could be considered old-timers as I'd venture to say that most of the staff has been with us for over half the life of CoC -- and like me, I'm sure they have no intentions of ever leaving. Praise and gratitude must be given to each and every member of the staff, current and former, for this magazine really is your creation.

Finally, I must reserve the greatest thanks for the greatest contribution to CoC that anyone has ever given. That, of course, goes to Pedro Azevedo. As any long time reader of these pages knows, Pedro has been instrumental in every significant event in the life of CoC. From his humble beginnings as "just another writer", Pedro has always impressed me given that his writing was better than some of our other writers despite the fact that English is his second language. Quickly he volunteered to shoulder more responsibility by becoming our proofreader, then co-editor, and ultimately culminating in his re-engineering of CoC from an e-mailed text e-zine to a dynamic, archive-driven website ready for the 21st century.

Well, I said I wasn't going to make this nostalgic nor weepy, so I had better cut it short right here. Thanks to all our staff who have kept Chronicles of Chaos going during all our ups and downs. And finally, thanks to all our readers for whom we do what we do. We hope you keep returning for more and keep enjoying what you find here.

Cheers all,

Gino