Prog News, Press Releases - Andromeda: new live album "Playing Off The Board"

Get ready for a strong dose of progressive metal! Metal Mind Productions presents the first live album by one of best progressive metal bands - Andromeda. This Swedish quintet offers the fans of powerful and sublime sound compositions that are both structurally intricate and overflowing with a vast spectrum of emotions. “Playing Off The Board” includes live performance recorded at the Wyspianski Theater, Poland in Autumn 2006, when the band was promoting their most recent album at the time “Chimera”. The band’s first live release features over one hour of progressive music at its very best. Digipak edition is limited to 1000 copies.

“Playing Off The Board” is scheduled for release on 24th August in Europe and 6th October in USA (via MVD).

Bio
The origins of the Swedish quintet Andromeda can be traced back to 1999 when Johan Reinholdz submitted the demo "Welcome to Forever" to the record label WAR-music, who wanted to sign a deal. The feeling was mutual and in the autumn that year Andromeda came together as Thomas, Martin and bass player Gert Daun and Johan started rehearsing the songs for the “Extension of the Wish” album. In March 2000 Andromeda entered the Dug-Out studio to cut the album with the acclaimed producer Daniel Bergstrand. Vocal duties were handled by Lawrence Mackrory, doing the job as a hired gun. A month later it was mixed and ready, but it wasn’t until February 2001 that “Extension of the Wish” hit the record shops. In the meanwhile, the Andromeda line-up was completed when David joined the band in August 2000. Containing a dose of heavy, intense yet melodic progressive metal Extension of the Wish quickly seized the interest of magazines, webzines and fans. To support the album, the band made a tour of Sweden and also made a successful appearance at the Progpower festival in the Netherlands in October. August was spent re-recording the vocals for Extension of the Wish, this time by David, remixing the tracks and recording two new tracks for a French release of the album by the label NTS. It was released in November and Andromeda went on a tour of France together with Evergrey in February 2001. At this point the band had already began cutting the tracks for their second assault: “II=I”. The recordings continued throughout the year with Martin as the producer. In August the album was completed, containing a more complex, but also more vocal oriented, style of Andromeda. In 2003 the bass player Fabian Gustavsson replaced Gert, adding the final piece to the powerful jigsaw puzzle that is the ultimate Andromeda line-up. After a worldwide release of the album, touring and festival gigs, the band began writing material for their upcoming album “Chimera” and, in the spring of 2004, recording sessions were initiated. Striving for a simpler, more in-your-face kind of approach, the new material was certainly a step forward for the band. The third album was once again produced by Martin, going for a rock-solid sound. The band went on a European tour in the autumn of 2006 to support the album and wrapped it up with a performance in Katowice, Poland, which resulted in the release of their first live DVD: “Playing off the board”. The band’s most recent album “The Immunity Zone” was released in late 2008.