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CD/DVD Releases: Abandoned Stars Release Debut ''Opening Act''

Posted on Monday, March 12 @ 18:00:00 UTC by nightowl

Abandoned Stars from 2010 began with Scottish brothers Leen and Tony Hodge on bass and drums, soon joined by Frenchman Olivier Hadder on vocals and Italian Peppe Schiavone on guitar.

Abandoned Stars take influences from classic prog rock like Rush & Dream Theater and newer prog metal bands such as Pain of Salvation, Opeth & Karnivool.

Summer 2011 the band chose four songs of their repertoire to be mixed and mastered by the excellent Marty Bak of SLR studio,Ontario, Canada in order to unleash their EP Opening Act to the masses. To support the release, a music video for the song 'Beyond Reason' was made available from December 2011.

Early 2012 the band is being played to a few rock/metal web radios and got some national and international FM airplay and the EP is collecting rave reviews in the press across the globe. Abandoned Stars is also a real stage machine: their first show of the year was unbelievably hot for Scotland and melted the ears of the Teviot Underground (400+ capacity) in their hometown of Edinburgh, a good omen for things to come!

Press:

"Dream Theater and Rush are the clear major influences here and then I am talking about the first couple of Dream Theater records, mixed with Rush circa Presto and they also have some similarities to King's X. It’s a pity there are only 4 tracks on the album, but happily they all sound very good and make you very eager to a full-length CD release. The album was mixed and mastered in Canada and you can really hear that, because like already mentioned earlier on, they sound very non-UK/Scottish and are closer to a Canadian, American or Scandinavian band. Opener 'Beyond Reason' shows right away we are dealing here with a very impressive band, because this is Rush meets Dream Theater meets King's X at it’s best! Following track 'Follow Your Heart' is catchier, has some great keyboard arrangements and a killer Kamelot-ish chorus, so a more straight-ahead uptempo piece, with still some massive sounding Prog Metal breaks and overall the best song on the EP ... these songs are meant to sound darker than the earlier tunes and are resembling a very slight touch of bands like Pain Of Salvation, Nevermore, and Mastodon. The band has a great lead singer, instrumental it all sounds very good and who knows in 2012 this band might release a sensational full-length CD that will be as good as 2011's Pagan Mind's classic Heavenly Ecstasy that was the best Prog Metal album of the year 2011" ~ Gabor Kelinblosem - Strutter, Holland

Band Line Up:

Lead Vocals – Olivier Hadder
Guitar – Peppe Schiavone
Bass – Leen
Drums – Tony Hodge

Tracklisting:

1- Beyond Reason
2- Follow Your Heart
3- Sealing My Fate
4- Against The Tide

[Source: TSM Productions]

Posted in Album Release News