Scandinavian metallers EVIL MASQUERADE released their new album “The Outcast Hall Of Fame” on 19th May via Dark Minstrel Music. The album was produced by Henrik Flyman and mixed and mastered by Tommy Hansen (Helloween, Pretty Maids, Jorn).
The personnel for this album is a little different to previous ones as there are four contributing vocalists, creating a very unique style and sound. We recently caught up with mainman Henrik Flyman to find out more about the album. An excerpt from the interview can be read below and you can hear the full audio on the player:
Discussing the album Henrik stated:
“It’s been going better and better. I think the whole thing with the album and songwriting feels better than ever and it’s probably one of the easiest albums I’ve wrote somehow. There’s eight songs on this album and I wrote maybe ten or twelve and that’s quite unusual. It feels really good I must say.”
Featuring on vocals: • MATS LEVÉN (Candlemass) • RICK ALTZI (Masterplan, At Vance) • APOLLO PAPATHANASIO (Spiritual Beggars) • NICKLAS SONNE (Defecto)
On backing vocals: • YENZ LEONHARDT (Stormwarrior, Lacrimosa)
Performed by the usual suspects: • HENRIK FLYMAN – guitar & vocals • DENNIS BUHL – drums • THOR JEPPESEN – bass • ARTUR MEINILD – keyboard
For more information on EVIL MASQUERADE, visit the band’s official website here and official Facebook page here.
Scandinavian metallers EVIL MASQUERADE have reported that all songs for their upcoming 7th studio album are now written and they are about to enter the studio. The new material serenades the first decade of Evil Masquerade while embracing a brand new chapter of the band. Guitarist and band leader Henrik Flyman says the songs are “rock solid and really good, with roots in the glory days of heavy metal and an Evil Masquerade trademark sound.“ The tracklist is told to include a 12½ minutes monumental epos and a 200 years old Swedish song… in Swedish.
On a side note let us also remind you about the new blog section on the official Evil Masquerade website. It is regularly updated by the band (and occasional guest bloggers).
Studio reports will be exclusively posted in this blog.
Guitarist Henrik Flyman created Danish metal band EVIL MASQUERADE ten years ago. The band have since released six albums, the first one being “Welcome To The Show” in 2004. They have been through some testing line-up changes, but kept going, producing top quality metal throughout their career. Reaching a pinnacle of ten years in a band’s career is no mean feat these days, so to celebrate this milestone, the band have released a special compilation album entitled “10 Years In The Dark”.
I caught up with Henrik recently to find out more about the new album. You can read an excerpt from our conversation and listen to the full chat on the audio player below:
Discussing the process which lead to releasing “10 Years In The Dark”, Henrik expressed:
“We’ve been around for ten years and we’re not quitting at all, so instead of leaving that for the future when this band will end (hopefully never), instead of waiting for that, tell the people thank you for being around. It’s actually ten years, so it’s worth celebrating!
The compilation idea came very naturally because we haven’t done one before. But now with six albums out and from “Pentagram” a lot of people started to join us and a lot of them aren’t that familiar with the early stuff. So, for newcomers to get a glimpse of the band and also for long time fans, we did a re-master of the old material.”
Henrik revealed his plans for the future:
“History tells me I should not be too certain about how the future should be, but the only thing I can guarantee is that there will come a new album from Evil Masquerade, it will probably come next year and it will sound really, really good!”
Check out the official EVIL MASQUERADE Facebook page here and the official website here.
As part of our Tribute To Ritchie Blackmore week, we have invited well known names in the world of rock and metal to share their thoughts about Ritchie. For the next in the series, we have Henrik Flyman, producer, composer and guitarist with Scandinavian melodic metallers EVIL MASQUERADE. The band are preparing for the imminent release of their new album “The Digital Crucifix” next week on April 22nd.
You can read some excerpts from the interview below and listen to the chat in full on the player:
Henrik expressed his thoughts about Ritchie and his work:
“I’ve followed him from DEEP PURPLE, then moving on to RAINBOW, who were probably even better for me. Especially the first albums with Dio, where I thought his songwriting was absolutely brilliant.
Returning again to DEEP PURPLE with the “Perfect Strangers” album, which I think is one of the best albums they ever did, an absolutely fantastic album and songwriting. It feels like it has a lot of Ritchie Blackmore in that one.
When he moved onto BLACKMORE’S NIGHT, I don’t know what I expected, but I was extremely disappointed. I think maybe I expected a new RAINBOW, some hard rock and it was absolutely not. So, I lost him there for many years and then I picked him up again around 2000 and started to check out the BLACKMORE’S NIGHT albums again.
When I checked out the first one again, I can’t understand if I was on drugs or something as it’s brilliant. I think I had the wrong expectations and I didn’t give it chance. And now I can say the first, second, fourth and fifth albums I hear frequently, several times a week, which I can’t say about many bands.
I don’t think Ritchie ever got lazy and even though I don’t appreciate the more current BLACKMORE’S NIGHT albums as much as the early ones, I think they work hard writing new music, they still have something to prove. Some people can get boring with such a long career, but Ritchie hasn’t and I really like him for that.Primarily as a songwriter I respect him tremendously.”
Just before Christmas, Tommy Hansen (HELLOWEEN, PRETTY MAIDS, JORN) finalized the mix of Scandinavian band EVIL MASQUERADE‘s upcoming album ‘The Digital Crucifix‘. This is their 6th album and it marks a new important chapter of the band, since it introduces Swedish powerhouse singer Tobias Jansson who joined the band last summer and will be released via Dark Minstrel Music.
Even though the previous album ‘Pentagram’ was released almost two years ago – it still hasn’t had a chance to cool off. It continues to pop up on new radio playlists around the world. The reception has been nothing but amazing.
Henrik Flyman spent about a year (between shows and tours) composing the new album. This has now resulted in, what is likely to be considered, their best collection of songs ever. ‘The Digital Crucifix’ is playful, powerful and sometimes almost aggressive. It has already been described as “Iron Maiden on crack” and “ABBA on speed”. Add some darkness to that and it’s close to the truth. You won’t be disappointed!
And as if this wasn’t enough; EVIL MASQUERADE celebrates 10 years as a band!
This will be an exciting year.
For more information on EVIL MASQUERADE, check out their official website here and their official Facebook page here.
As October is the main focus for Cancer Awareness campaigns, though of course we are all aware all of the time, I wanted to conduct a series of interviews, focusing on the Metal For CancerDragon Slayer All Star Project.
The project is the brainchild of Australian musician Richard Ofsoski. Last year, Richard decided to get together an all star cast including such metal artists as Henrik Flyman (EVIL MASQUERADE), Mats Leven (THERION, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN), Snowy Shaw (THERION, MERCYFUL FATE), Tonny Kakko (SONATA ARCTICA, NORTHERN KINGS), Glenn Drover (MEGADETH, TESTAMENT), Stu Marshall (EMPIRES OF EDEN), Apollo Papathanasio (FIREWIND, EVIL MASQUERADE) plus many more. The aim is for as many music lovers as possible to buy the song from theMetal For Cancer website with 100% of the proceeds going to the Australian Cancer Research Foundation.
My first interview for this project was with Henrik Flyman, guitarist with Scandinavian metallers EVIL MASQUERADE. You can read a couple of excerpts below, followed by the full interview on the player:
When asked about how the song “Let’s Unite In Rock” was recorded, Henrik said: “We were trying to raise money not spend money, so we had to do it via the internet and sending demos to each other. The most difficult part for me as producer of the song was to gather all the parts from the musicians and put them together, so it sounded like we worked together. As you can imagine, you have a vocalist in the USA, then someone in Australia or wherever. Of course, even though the quality of the recordings were good, to be able to mix it I really had to do some work to do a normal mix. But looking back, it sounded really good. the song didn’t take much time to write, as I knew where I wanted to go with it. From starting to pre-production it was something like 3 days, but the difficult part was getting the material as people were busy or on tour. But that’s the good thing about going into a project like this, because you don’t know how it will work, but I really liked the idea so I went for it, which is often the best way.”
Discussing the style of the song, Henrik had the following to say: “Basically I wanted to make a song that would cross some borders, for example if you take the old songs from bands like Black Sabbath and Dio, most people into metal like those bands, despite what type of metal they are playing now. Most of the musicians involved grew up with that kind of ’80’s music. I wanted to make the chorus a melodic anthem style, but not too cliche. So I chose to make it as it is, it’s still people uniting, but not that cheesy. As for the lyrics, I didn’t want to make it sad, as it’s such a sensitive issue and it could still be a good rock song. If you read the lyrics it’s still 100% about the issue of dealing with cancer. I think people appreciate that and it would make it easier for people to buy it, as it’s just a rock and roll song.”
Listen to the full interview here:
Check out the song:
Check out the following links for the METAL FOR CANCER Project and EVIL MASQUERADE below:
Scandinavian metallers EVIL MASQUERADE released their new album “The Outcast Hall Of Fame” on 19th May via Dark Minstrel Music. The album was produced by Henrik Flyman and mixed and mastered by Tommy Hansen (Helloween, Pretty Maids, Jorn).
