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I don't really know why I haven't done this before, but here I go then
I'm in a band called Gwyllion. I play keyboards and do backing vocals along with one of the guitar players. Apart from those, there's a (female) singer, a second guitar, bass guitar and drums. We make some awesome music, are famous around the world and have sold millions of albums. Well, except for those last two things.
Nevertheless it is still getting pretty big so I decided it's worth telling a little about it it's also the reason I haven't been able to raid on any wednesdays this year because of vocal rehearsals
A Bit of History:
We released our first real album in 2007: Awakening the Dream. Got awesome reviews (ranging from 81/100 to 9/10), and started recording another album at the start of 2008. On this one, we decided not to settle for anything but the best - so we contacted the best producer in our genre: Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden, who has worked for bands like Opeth, Paradise Lost, Symphony X, Katatonia, Pain of Salvation, Soilwork, Amon Amarth, Hammerfall, ... and the list goes on. You may not know any of those bands but they are still some of the most well known in the genre
That's as far as sound goes - for the artwork of our album, we contacted Monument Studios, which may have some better known clients: Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Disturbed, Slayer, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paul McCartney, Korn, Van Halen, Black Sabbath,... and even some 'non-band' organisations like Coca Cola, Harley Davidson, Ford and Samsung. Still can hardly believe THOSE guys made our album artwork
Once that was all completed - recorded at our own studio in Belgium, mixed/mastered/produced by Jens Bogren in Sweden (two of us stayed over there for a week) and artwork in Canada and Denmark (if I'm not mistaken) - we had the complete package and started looking for labels. That was sort of the point - create the best we could, and then see whether we can get a label; if we couldn't, it really would have to be a confirmation that all you need is luck, not quality.
Well, we now have a label in Europe (Black Bards Entertainment) and Japan (Rubicon Music), and an American label (Sonic Cathedral) has put us on a Compilation cd (A World of Sirens) with an older song (from the 2007 album). We don't have a deal to relase our latest album there yet though.
That's what we knew around New Year. Here's the news since then:
Latest News:
- We were offered a European tour, organised by Napalm Records, taking place around Easter this year with two larger bands
- Our singer left the band (because we accepted the offer and she didn't want that)
- The tour was moved to Fall this year (no details yet)
- We found a new singer
- Our new website is online since a few days (our drummer made it, except for database related things which I made)
- Our new album 'The Edge of All I Know' is to be released in Belgium on March 6th and in the rest of Europe April 3rd, by Black Bards Entertainment (German label). It will also be released in Japan, probably around April 3rd too, think we still need confirmation on that.
- The T-Shirt designs are now also on the website, they can be pre-ordered just like the album (with the order form that I so excellently made). If you do, you'll likely get it a lot earlier than the 'European' release date since we intend to send them for the Belgian one (if we're allowed anyway)
Damn that looks huge, it's actually bigger than the actual CD I'm holding here.
Eh, and, weird, the logo is actually on a different place on the CD
Anyway -
since images are fun, here are some more: the tshirts (which include some of the artwork from inside the album booklet, adapted to the tshirts by our drummer). The full images are pretty big so I posted the small versions, you'll be taken to the page with larger versions by clicking on them
They're in order: the Tshirt, the Hoodie (back) and the Girlie.
So that's the artwork - amazing, I agree - the music isn't completely freely available of course,... but there's a compilation of the new songs, as well as three full songs from the previous CD (not as well produced though...) available on these pages:
Free music:
http://www.gwyllion.com/music.php
http://www.myspace.com/gwyllionmetal
I know this post is a little chaotic. But the images make up for it, no?
And then now you may all proceed to pre-order the album and T-shirts on the website
Sygmoral