THE CODEX
Frontiers Records is pleased to announce the release of the brand new Mark Boals / Magnus Karlsson cooperation THE CODEX on November 9th 2007.
THE CODEX marks the return to recording - after a 3 years hiatus - for Mark Boals, known as one of the best singers ever to work with Yngwie Malmsteen and first class vocalist, awarded in 1999 by BURRN! Magazine readers in Japan as Best Overall singer of the year.
Mark also released 3 successful solo albums and fronted the Power-Prog Metal band Ring Of Fire (which such musical giants as Virgil Donati, Tony MacAlpine and Vitalij Kuprij), with whom he released another 3 studio albums and one live cd / dvd.
"I am feeling great, better than ever!" says Boals about his comeback, "I was interested in working with Magnus after hearing his work, I love his guitar playing, and of course his songwriting is superb! There are great melodies and I really enjoyed singing on this one. It's really a catchy album, and I have been listening to it a lot, which I rarely do with my work".
Boals' partner in crime on THE CODEX is another Swedish guitar-wizard, Magnus Karlsson, a super-talented and busy guy actually, since he is the mastermind behind Starbreaker (with Tony Harnell) and the recent very successful Allen / Lande collaboration.
"It's really an honour to work with such a fantastic singer", states Karlsson, "It's very easy to write for Mark because he has this enormous vocal range. I have never heard anything like it! He sings some unbelievably high notes and he does it so beautiful. Musically I wanted to stretch the borders a little more than usual, with almost a Power Metal style in some songs and very soft parts in others. I use a lot of orchestral arrangement to make it bigger but at the same time I try to leave space for the heaviness in the guitars, drums and bass. I also wanted this to be an album with focus on the vocals and melody as I always do but I added a lot of guitar shredding as well".
Completing the line-up are Linus Abrahamson on bass and Daniel Flores (Mind's Eye) on drums.
THE CODEX is truly a creative and diverse album which shows a very different side of Karlsson songwriting and gives Boals the chance to showcase some of his most aggressive and heaviest vocals ever. It is probably the heaviest cd where the two artists have ever been involved with, still keeping intact the trademarks of a monster Melodic Metal album.
Tracklisting includes:
Beyond The Dark; Raise Your Hands; Toxic Kiss; Bring Down The Moon; Running Out Of Hate; Dream Makers; Whole Again; Mistress Of Death; Mystery; Prisoner; You Can Have It All; Garden Of Grief.
Headbangers are kindly invited to sink their teeth into this !