In the bleak autumn of 1996 EVEMASTER was formed by Tomi Mykkänen (music) and Jarno Taskula (vocals). Since Tomi had some songs ready already, the band recorded their first demo In Thine Majesty not later than at the end of the year. "I had some riffs and half songs around for a while but they really didn't fit for the bands I was in at the time", Tomi, man behind the music says and continues, "so I needed a new band to channel my ideas". The demo was heavily promoted by the band itself and after negotiations with some labels Finnish KTOK Records released their first CD Lacrimae Mundi in mid 1998. The band also negotiated later another deal for the album with Polish AMP Records. In 2002 band signed a deal with Low frequency Records and new album entitled Wither was released in 2003. Wither introduced more aggressive, yet more melodic style than it's predecessor Lacrimae Mundi had. "Somehow my death metal past showed its ugly head when I was making the new songs for Wither", Tomi explains.

Wither features some friends like Jaska Raatikainen (Children of Bodom) on drums, Anssi Kippo (Astia Studio, ROCK) on synths, Mika Lindberg (Cradle of Filth, Mortiis, Colonian) on clean vocals, Lauri Penttilä (Armour, Satanic Warmaster, Horna) on guest vocals and Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot) on Wings of Darkness which is a cover of Tarot classic from their first album.

After Wither was released the band activated on the live scene and played a few gigs with bands such as Anathema, Grip Inc, Throes Of Dawn, Samael, Vader, Battlelore, Korpiklaani, Lacuna Coil, etc.

In 2004 the band decided to re-record their debut album Lacrimae Mundi with real drums with Jaska Raatikainen playing. The drums were recorded in POP-studio by Mika Haapasalo. Then Tomi re-recorded the guitars in his own Barrow studio. A new cover of DIO's We Rock was included in the re-release. The album was released through Crash Music but the band has never actually seen any correspondence or CDs from the label so they consider the release to be a pirated one.

In 2003 Tomi started working on the new songs and it actually took him almost 4 years to complete the material for the next album. The studio was booked in May 2007 for drum recording and Jaska was once again ready and willing. 2 weeks before the session should have started the studio owner had to cancel due to personal problems. Soon after Jaska went on CoB-tour with Slayer and Evemaster started hibernating again. It took almost a year and a chat with a friend (Ville Sorvali from Moonsorrow) that something started to happen again. Ville agreed to co-produce the album with Tomi and Drop Hammer Studios was booked for 3 evenings in early June 2009.

"I think that the break from 2007 to 2008 did a lot of good for the songs", Tomi says and continues: "I made quite a lot of changes to the songs and the lyrical concept grew and was finalised during that year.".

As Jaska was away with CoB Tomi asked his friend Enrico Annus (Khert-Neter, Battlelore fill-in) if he would be interested in playing the drums for the album. "I'm blessed with all these musical friends and hearing Enkku playing the drums on my songs was an honor. He surely shone like a crazy diamond in the studio and did enourmous job on those 3 evenings we were recording drums", Tomi says. All the drums are played live and raw (there are a few takes in all of the songs though) and there's not any quantisizing or corrections done on them. "I'm proud of Enkku how he was able to follow my crazy ideas and even improve the drum lines for the album", Tomi says.

After drums were done Jarno started rehearsing the vocals. The vocals were recorded late-summer 2008 in Tomi's Barrow Studio. "It was very relaxed and even fun to record the vocals by our own as there was no time limits or any need to force anything, "we still need to get three more songs done today even my throat is dead", Jarno laughs and continues: "of course it took longer to record the album but it didn't cost anything and the end result is so much better compared to Wither for example.". "Jarno out-did himself and in my eyes (and ears!) this is the best vocal performance of his so far.", Tomi comments.

"Ville liked the stuff we had been doing and he said that he'd like to play the bass on the album. I couldn't say no.", Tomi says and continues: "Of course it's better to have a real bass player to play the bass on the album than me playing everything. Gives a lot more fresh ideas for the songs." The basses were recorded in Barrow Studio during the early autumn.

Guitars were recorded during autumn and winter by Tomi himself in Barrow studios. Tomi needed a guitar solo for 2 of the songs and as he's not a guitar god himself he decided to ask from another friend Markus Vanhala (Omnium Gatherum, Malpractise) if he'd record the solos. And in no time Tomi had the solos in place. After guitars were recorded Tomi contacted his friend Ismo Monola, who had also played in Evemaster live line-up earlier, if he was interested in playing the synths on the album. "I used to be a metal maniac but lately haven't listened to any except the earlier Evemaster-stuff when we were playing the liveshows.", Ismo says and continues: "These new songs are different, they have a lot of cross-over potential. The album is very diverse musically, it features some doomish elements mixed with some death and even black metalish moments. Not to forget the mellower parts." Ismo's synths complement the music extremely well and they bring more that "retro-futuristic" feel in the music that Tomi wanted this album to have.

After everything was recorded Tomi and Jarno went back to Drop Hammer Studios. The studio owner Santeri Salmi re-amped the guitars and now everything was done. Tomi did some final touches to the tracks and sent all the material for Dan Swanö to be mixed and mastered. Two of the songs still needed some clean vocals and Tomi bravely asked Dan if he'd be able to record those. Dan said yes. "I still remember when I heard New Age Dawns for the first time. When Dan's vocals started I almost cried. I was so proud to have him sing on my song.", Tomi says.

The deal with Supernova Records was signed soon after the master was done. "I hope that after this album is released people will find it and give it a good listen. I'm also hoping that the concept story on the album will give it even more interesting angle that people will enjoy.", Tomi says.

I've done music for: Sirius sport resort, Keskiympyrä, Sscinema, Vostok games and some other projects.

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