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 Dec 11, 2011
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Yuval Kramer, producer and guitarist for Israeli Prog-Metal band AMASEFFER, announces the approach of a new project - 'Reign of the Architect'; a new sci-fi saga, featuring some well-known guest musicians and vocalists, as well as introducing fresh, new talents.
'Reign of the Architect' is an international collaboration started by Mauricio Bustamante, Mexican drummer, and Yuval Kramer himself. It has been in production for the last 4 years. In 2010, Mauricio joined Yuval in Jerusalem, Israel, to finally begin recording their mutual effort.
The story, which the band has yet to reveal, will unfold over the course of 2 albums. The first part to be released in early 2012; "A fit year for an ending of a tale," they say.
Joining Mauricio (drums) and Yuval (guitars), are Israeli vocalists: Yotam Avni (Prey for Nothing), Tom Gefen, Davidavi (Vidi) Dolev, Adva Kramer and Grace Hannah Woolf.
As previously mentioned, the album will also include guest appearances by some well-known artists, such as: vocalist Jeff Scott Soto (Yingwie Malemsteen, Journey, etc.), bassist Mike LePond (Symphony X), keyboardist Joost Van Der Brooek (Areyon, Star One, etc.), bassist Kyle Honea and more.
"Even though we had the chance to collaborate with some of our favorite musicians out there," Mauricio and Yuval ask to add, "we wanted to introduce fresh and unknown artists, both instrumentalists and vocalists, to the world. Artists we can guarantee will blow your mind!".
At the moment, the band's debut (title has yet to be revealed) is being meticulously and painstakingly mixed. All of the tracks feature a plentitude of layers consisting, among others, multiple guitar and vocal layers, and multitudes of orchestral and exotic instruments.
The band is currently in negotiations with a few record labels in hopes to have exciting news in the near future.
The Band's first single is available on their website:
http://www.reignofthearchitect.com |
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Dec 02, 2010
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We're back!
A taste of things to come...
New song "Pillar of Fire" from upcoming album "When Lions Leave Their Den" available on our new dedicated website:
www.whenlionsleavetheirden.com
KEEP IT HOLY |
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May 31, 2010
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Hello holy friends,
It is now official: Amaseffer's drummer & producer, Erez Yohanan, is set to compose two full soundtracks for two new video-games.
The first video game is titled: "Dungeon Legend".
This is a development of 3D art and gaming company "3DAttack". http://3dattack.us/3DAttack/Games.html .
Dungeon Legend is a Role Playing Game (RPG) currently produced by Thomas Pasieka (3D ATTACK) and Jon Tiller. The game is currently in it’s early alpha stages. Erez is the head of audio development at 3DAttack and will compose the full score for the game, produce & record all SFX design, Narrate the game intro & game-play and mix the whole audio package into the actual game. More updates will be available soon...
You can now listen to a small test sample of music from a random stage in the actual game-play at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIjnZPMXdrI .
The second video-game is titled: "The Hockey Intelligym".
This is the first ever hockey-sense training tool, is co-developed by USA Hockey (USAH) and Applied Cognitive Engineering (ACE) http://hockey.intelligym.com
Research & development of the hockey training system is now in final stages. The extensive research was conducted by a team of leading cognitive engineers and top national hockey coaches.
Erez is the head of audio development at Intelligym and will compose the full score for the game, produce & record all SFX design and mix the whole audio package into the actual game. Launch date is estimated for next month (June 2010).
Visit Erez's Soundtracks web site at: www.musicbyerez.com
Keep it holy
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April 9th, 2010
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Hello holy friends,
Few months has passed since our last update for we took some time off in order to focus on the new album. We now want to update you with the latest developments at Amaseffer's camp.
First, we will now reveal the title for the second installment of our Exodus trilogy! Title for the new album is: WHEN THE LIONS LEAVE THEIR DEN.
We think that this title is best describing the events of our new album which will mainly deal with the actual Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The trigger to use this title was actually that it's a part of the lyrics for the opening track, PILLAR OF FIRE, written by our dear friend Yotam Avni. Yotam is writing all the lyrics for the new album and so far we think he's "cooking" a divine creation!
As stated before, Mats Leven, our lead singer, has already recorded vocal lines for a few songs and we expect him to finish the album by the end of May.
Now to the real fire: Basically all orchestrations are composed, arranged and recorded, now we just have to add them to the rest of the mix (once we'll finish it) and find the right balance for them so it will blend smoothly in the song structures.
We set a recording date for the 60 piece choir and the drums. Both will be recorded at Gal-Kol studios in Israel and we expect the recording sessions to stretch on a 4 days period in beginning of June. Guitars are mostly written and will be recorded at Amaseffer's studio in Jerusalem right after we finish recording the choir and drums. It will take a few days of guitar recordings and right after that, we will start mixing the album, also at Amaseffer's studio, then we will send it to Germany for final mastering process. If everything works out as we plan, we expect to have a finished album by July or early August at the latest.
The concept for the album art work is also in final stages of development and we are very very happy with it.
It is confirmed that Maya Avraham will sing on our new album as well. In our debut album, SLAVES FOR LIFE, Maya sang on one track (Zipporah) and we were truly amazed by her vocal abilities, so for the new album we have decided to give her bigger and more significant vocal parts. We will record Maya At Amaseffer's studio at the beginning of June. Two more very special guests will be revealed right before the album release date, so stay tuned!
That's about it for now holy friends, we will keep you posted with latest developments as we progress with the new album.
We would like to send you our warmest regards and thak you for supporting our holy voyage!
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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August 25, 2009
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AMASEFFER drummer Erez Yohanan granted METALEATER exclusive listening access to three of the band's brand new songs, which will be included on their forthcoming, as-yet untitled album. The new material is very promising and flows seamlessly in the vein of their impressive debut full-length, "Slaves For Life".
METALEATER's Tony Antunovich describes the three new songs as follows:
"The Chase" (5:21) - This tune begins with chanting choir vocals behind some great syncopation of drums and fuzzy guitar. Again, Mats Leven stands behind the microphone, lending his distinct, eclectic voice to the song.
"Pillar Of Fire" (6:45) - Upon first listen, you'd expect this to be a much more melodic piece in both mood and tempo, but "Pillar Of Fire" turns into a chugging, steady rhythm. Lyrically, it appears that Yohanan places strong emphasis on Hebrew-based content, which is strongly reinforced with dense Middle-Eastern flavourful background sounds. One of the great features of this song is the builds - that is the sound (similar to a rocket building up before takeoff) "rising" from a mellow mood to a more intense one.
"Chant Of The Sea" (5:51) - A beautiful acoustic-guitar driven song. Again Mats Leven proves just how versatile a vocalist he really is by shifting back and forth from low to high to deep to soaring. The incorporation of female vocals, creating a duet setting in some sections gives the song that much more ambiance and substance.
Yohanan also sat down with METALEATER to bring us up to speed on what is currently happening in the AMASEFFER camp, stating: "We are currently looking for a new label to release our new album and the third chapter of our trilogy as well. Things are moving slow but we will not compromise on that and we are sure that soon we will close a deal with the right one for us. Yuval (Kramer - guitar) is currently teaching guitar as a teacher at music university in Jerusalem. Hanan (Avramovich - guitar) is currently studying and finishing his degree as music and soundtracks composer. As for myself, I'm currently working on composing soundtracks for a few projects so we got our hands full, thank God for that."
Yohanan continues: "We could not be happier with the way the new album is turning out to be. It's exactly how we envisioned it. We have made the right modifications in order to release something fresh and not repeat ourselves. The new songs are much more 'in your face', more of the basic structure, It's more commercially oriented, songs will start much faster then our debut and will get to the real fire right from the top but yet again we still managed to keep all of AMASEFFER characteristics and sound, just like in 'Slaves For Life'. Today we are focusing solely on finding the new label and we took some time off from our recording sessions (not to mention our private projects we are currently involved in) so we could find the label and return immediately to the studio to finalize the album, hoping to release it by next year, which is not that far off our original plans."
There are also a lot of big surprises planned for the new album, as Yohanan enthuses: "Our fans can expect to hear a big turning point and will be very surprised with the new direction we are heading to. Not like in our debut, we will record for the new album 60-piece live choir of both adults and children chanting. We will have some big guest appearances as well and live philharmonic orchestra! The new album in terms of story line is much more dramatic and the music will definitely support this. We joke around in the studio while working on it and calling our new sound: 'AMASEFFER evolution' and we truly think it's the perfect way to describe it. Another decision we have made is to go on tour to support our new album so we are looking forward to that as well. To all our fans around the world, in regards to the new album, we can say clearly: Expect the unexpected holy friends!"
KEEP IT HOLY
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June 03, 2009
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Due to the latest development with our record label, the two video clips that we were working on are cancelled.
We hope to release them in the future.
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June 03, 2009
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Due to reasons preserved to our selves we have decided not to implement the rest of our contract with InsideOut/SPV. We are now in negotiations with new record labels and will post news regarding that soon.
New album news:
We are now in pre-production stages of our new album (which is the second part of our Biblical trilogy). Three songs are ready and finished, including Mats vocals and so far we are extremely happy with them. The new songs are direct continuation to our debut "Slave for Life" but yet again, much heavier and in your face, so expect a big surprise with the new album.
We hope to finish the album by the end of this summer and hoping to release it by the end of the year or beginning of next year at the most.
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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March 11, 2009
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We are proud to announce that "Slaves for Life" has been chosen for best debut album of 2008 by the Norwegian rock radio station Glasshuset - Kanal 1 FM 100.http://glasshuset.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=1
We would like to thank all people in Norway who have been chosen Amaseffer!
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February 06, 2009
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Hello Holy friends, please take a moment and vote for Amaseffer as best progressive album of 2008 at:
http://www.metalstorm.ee/awards/categories.php?cat_id=16
Thank you for your support!
KEEP IT HOLY
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December 22, 2008
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The poll is closed and the announcement has been made: Amaseffer's debut "Slaves for Life" is best prog album of 2008!
This is at the progressive music web site USA PROGMUSIC:
http://usaprogmusic.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=222&Itemid=34
The final top three readers picks:
1. Amseffer - Slaves for Life
2. Opeth - Watershed
3. Dominici - O3
The band would like to thank all people who have voted and supporting Amaseffer!
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November 29, 2008
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Shalom from Israel holy friends,
We are happy to announce the shooting/editing of two documented video clips for two songs taken from our debut album "Exodus - Slaves for Life". The chosen ones are: Title track - Slaves for Life, and the other is - The Burning Bush
Both videos will be directed by Israeli Tal Engelstein (founder and singer of heavy rock band: 195dB). Clips will have two versions: edited short version and full length as they appear in the album.
It is not yet decided if we will release them both simultaneously or separately, an announcement regarding that will be posted by our record label: InsideOut Music/SPV once the videos are done, hopefully in a month or so.
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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November 29, 2008
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Hello friends,
It was a great year for Amaseffer debut release "Slave for Life" has accepted world wide recognition and as we are heading for the end of 2008 the polls for best prog albums are starting now, some are being pick solely by Mag's editors and some by you.
Please take a moment and vote for Amaseffer album "Slaves for Life" as best prog album of 2008.
(on the right side of the page at the following link):
http://www.usaprogmusic.com/joomla/index.php
Thank you so much for your support so far and spread the word.
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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August 05th, 2008
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Hello Holy friends,
It has been a just over a month since "Slaves for Life" was released worldwide on August 24 and so far the album has received rave reviews all over the world (read most of them so far at the PRESS section). To keep this positive pace Amaseffer has granted the Norwegian reporter Roy Kristensen of web site www.imhotep.no an inside and privet look to Amaseffer's departmentalized areas. Yuval Kramer and Hanan Avramovich has talked to Roy, geting up close and personal with him, talking about Amaseffer's ideologies and beyond. This interview is featured in two parts: read the first part online today and second part on August 15.
Hand in hand, Imhotep web site has chosen Amaseffer to be feature of the month and the album "Slaves for Life" as album of the month. Read all stories at the following links:
General overview of the album:
http://www.imhotep.no/?did=9083093
First part of the interview:
http://www.imhotep.no/?did=9083026&aid=9069486
Review:
http://www.imhotep.no/?did=9083084&aid=9069486
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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July 08th, 2008
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Hello everyone,
As previously posted Amaseffer has written the full original soundtrack for the Israeli film "Altalena". The film premiers on July 14th at the "Jerusalem Film Festival" and obviously all three members of Amaseffer will attend the screening, meet the press and talk about their work on the score.
Visit Altalena page at official festival website:
http://www.jff.org.il/?CategoryID=547&ArticleID=508
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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June 24th, 2008
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Amaseffer's debut album is released today in USA and rest of the world!
The album was released in Europe on June 9 and so far has received raving reviews by music critics all over Europe. Read some reviews at Press section.
Sound clips from the whole album has been uploaded to our official web site and MySpace page at www.myspace.com/amaseffer
The band will soon go into phase two by setting the pre-production dates for chapter two of the trilogy which they will make an announcement regarding that soon.
KEEP IT HOLY
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June 06th, 2008
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Hello everyone,
The day we have all been waiting for has finally come. Our debut album titled "Slaves for Life" is out in Europe and will be released worldwide on June 26th.
So far all European reviews has been amazingly supportive beyond all our expectations. visit our new PRESS section and read all the new European reviews.
So allow us to say thank you from the deepest corner of our soul for your support!
KEEP IT HOLY
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April 09th, 2008
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Hello to you Holy friends,
We are extremely excited to announce that Amaseffer has joined InsideOut Music Family! We could not be happier to work with such visionary people that running this label and we are looking forward to a great future with them. Release dates also announced at the bottom of this page.
See their statement as posted earlier today:
InsideOut Music is proud to announce the signing of the Israeli band Amaseffer. Their first album entitled 'Slaves For Life' is the first in a trilogy about the history of the people of Israel as portrayed in the old testament.
Hanan Avramovich (Guitars), Yuval Kramer (Guitars) and Erez Yohanan (Drums) offer an unique mixture of Progressive Metal and epic Middle East influenced orchestral film score parts played by a full Symphony Orchestra. All lead vocals were sung by Mats Leven (Therion, Yngwie Malmsteen). Special guest is Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy).
The album was recorded and mixed by Markus Teske (Vanden Plas, Abydos, Saga live) and the artwork was done by Mattias Norén (Evergrey, Kamelot, Epica).
'Slaves For Life' will be released on:
June 6th in Germany, Austria, Switzerland
June 9th in Europe
June 24th in North America
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December 21th, 2007
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Holy friends, we give you: "Slaves For Life"!
This is the opening track from our first part of a Trilogy recounting the Bible story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt.
On the first album of the trilogy we pick up the story right from the slavery period in Egypt when the new Pharaoh enslaves and oppresses the Israelites with forced labour. This is what we tried to emphasize on this song, the cruelty and ruthless power of the cold hearted Pharaoh and on the other hand the Israeli slaves desperate cry for deliverance!
The song features Mats Leven (Ex Therion, Krux) on lead vocals, Kobi Farhi (Orphaned Land) on lead oriental singing and Erez Yohanan as the Narrator.
The art work was hand drawn by Mattias Norén . As stated before, each and every track on the album will be presented with his own unique hand drawn illustration, this meant to capture the moment and vision for the songs.
No release date is yet set for the album. As soon as we find ourselves a record label we will announce it, so as we see it the release is a few months away from us.
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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November 29th, 2007
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After negotiations with a production company in Israel it was decided that Amaseffer will write the full score soundtrack for the Israeli movie "Altalena".
The movie is done and edited so next week (Dec 2nd) Amaseffer will start the writing process for the full score which will be recorded and edited at Amaseffer's own studios in Tel-Aviv.
The band have formed a new legal company named: "Amaseffer soundtrack productions" and the sole purpose of the company will be writing movie soundtracks to productions all over the world regardless of the band's Exodus trilogy (more news regarding that coming soon).
The historical docudrama "Altalena" directed by Eli Cohen. It tells the story of the Altalena, a munitions ship brought to Israel by the Irgun (the pre-state underground militia led by Menachem Begin) during the War of Independence, and the dispute that erupted between prime minister David Ben-Gurion (played by Yossi Kantz) and Menachem Begin (Yoram Hatav). Ben-Gurion ordered the shelling of the ship by the fledgling Israel Defense Forces.
Moti Lerner wrote the screenplay, and the film is being produced by Riki Shelah and Zvi Shapira, with a budget provided by Keren Makor (the main investor), Keshet Television and the Israel Film Foundation. It has not yet been decided whether the film will be broadcast on TV or screened in theaters."
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| November 06th, 2007 |
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It is a great pleasure to finally write the words "the CD is done"!!!
We have just came back from Germany and we thought to share some words with you that will wrap up our Holy voyage so far to the point of having a finished CD in our hands.
What we did basically was uploading Mats Leven vocal lines, doing some final mix adjustments and finally we wrapped up the whole thing by doing the mastering process.
Now as we seat and finally have been listening to the totally finished result we can truly say that we could not ask for more then that!!! The final result is truly astonishing and we can't wait to share it with you, our Holy friends all around the world.
Surely Mats Leven vocal lines will not be overlooked by us here and we must say that the hard and detailed work he had put into it really took the CD one step to a level of perfection as we hear it! Mats brought a whole new dimension to our music!
Art work: We have just received all the finished art work for the CD and it came out truly AMAZING!!! We will unveil the CD cover, title and song list as soon as we start the promotion for the upcoming release.
As for a deal with a record label: we hope to bring you some good news regarding that as soon as possible. As we see it, we can look for a release in the next few months in God's will.
That's it for now from us, please stay tuned for our next update.
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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| October 18th, 2007 |
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We are happy to announce that the work on the vocal lines for the album is done. It is performed and recorded by Mats Leven at his studio in Sweden.
Since the departure of our previous singer (Andy Kuntz) we started a rapid work on the lyrics for the CD, since it was his (Andy) job writing it. But now it was a whole new ball game for we got replacement but we got no lyrics for him!
It was decided that if we want to move forward as fast as we can in order to record the vocal lines, we need to do it ourselves and write our own lyrics. The long and detailed research we did on the Bible story of the Exodus was at hand when we most needed it and it was a real guide to our work. It was great privilege and honor to use the help of the super talented Yotam "defiler" Avni and together with Yuval Kramer they wrote the lyrics for three songs on the album. Other three songs lyrics was written by Erez Yohanan and one was written by Yuval and Erez. All lyrics was done in two weeks including vocal guides for it!
When we first started working on the vocal lines with Mats it was clear the we are dealing with a super professional vocalist and a great person to work with. His work was rapid fast and right to the target we where aiming for. At firs it was a bit strange working online with him but once we got the hang of it it got faster and much more productive. The process was really simple: we have sent him the lyrics and vocal guides and he recorded them with some modifications to it. We found that the vocal guides was really helpful and made things going faster then we thought.
Mats contribution was great for he really got into the deepest details in terms of the lyrics and vocal lines. He showed a great sense of pertinence and did not let go of things that bothered him and we thank him for that. Here's what he had to say about it:
"Hi everyone,
Finally I'm finished with my vocals for the first CD!
It took a while since we had to work out melody lines by mailing Mp3's to each other and so on, but I think we've found a good understanding for each other's wishes now. I'm convinced the next 2 Cd's will be great as well, right now I'm thrilled to hear the first Cd's mixes.
Anyway, hope you'll enjoy the final result once it's released!
Cheers,
Mats"
So now that we got this over with we fly (again) to Germany to upload the vocal lines and do the Mastering for the CD.
Our hope is that we will release the CD in the next few months, but we will make a new announcement regarding that and the record label after we get back from Germany in a few weeks time so stay tuned.
Regarding the art work for the CD: in the last minute change it was decided to do a full illustrated booklet for the CD. Every song will have his own hand drawn illustration in order to pass through the visual of it. All art work is done by the great Mattias Norén.
Well that's it for now holy friends and hope to talk to you soon.
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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| July 20th, 2007 |
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We are very happy to announce that Mats Leven (Krux, ex-Therion, Yngwie Malmsteen) will contribute his singing abilities on our trilogy albums recounting the Bible story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt.
After the sad separation from our previous singer Andy Kuntz (Vanden Plas) we immediately started looking for the vocalist who will contribute his voice to our music.
We had the honor to be approached by a few of the leading names in the business but none of them really left us with the feeling of "this is the guy". It is such a vital part and we did not compromise on that regardless our tight time schedule.
We kept on looking and auditioning singers until we listened to Mats vocals on Therion, we were really impressed by his vocal abilities so we went on and listened to other stuff he did such as Krux (his current main act), Yngwie Malmsteen, Fatal Force and so on, he left us with the feeling of "this is the perfect man for the job!".
We contacted Mats just before we flew to Germany a few weeks ago (to finish the mix of our CD) and he showed a big interest in doing it so we sent him a part of a song with the lyrics so he will record his own vocal ideas to it. When he sent back the file to us we knew that he is the one.
Mats is a super cool guy with great ideas and he will contribute his voice on all three albums of the trilogy. We start finalizing the work on the vocal lines next week and hope we finish it as fast as we can in order to go forward with the release of the album.
We want to use this opportunity and say "Thank you Mats for doing this and good luck!"
As for the album:
We just came back from Germany after mixing the CD 95% and now we just have to upload Mats vocals when we finish the work on it.
To all our holy friends all over the world we send you our deepest appreciations for your support so far!
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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| May 28th, 2007 |
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With sad hearts and mixed emotions we are sadly announcing that Andy Kuntz will not sing on our trilogy of albums and the lead singer roll is now open.
After a long period of delays and set backs to our working progress it was decided that the best thing for Amaseffer is to search for a new lead singer that will be committed to his part in the trilogy.
The damage to our schedule due to Andy's unavailability could no longer be tolerated in order to go forward with the release of the first part of the Exodus trilogy.
It was not an easy decision for us. Andy is a wonderful person which we loved working with, we wish him all the best in the world and good luck in what he is striving for. I'm sure that it is not the end of the road for Andy in Amaseffer, as far as we see it, we will collaborate with him in one way or another some day but for now it's time for us to move on and find the best man for the job to join us on our holy voyage.
Currently we are auditioning a few leading singers and we will announce our choice in the next couple of weeks.
Regardless, we will not rush our decision due to our time schedule, the lead singer roll is an integral part of our trilogy and we will not compromise the singers quality even if it means that by doing so it will push us back a few steps. good things come for those who wait :-)
KEEP IT HOLY
Amaseffer camp
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