03/19/2007 18:50

Obtest

Obtest: new album in the works + other news

The most well known Lithuanian pagan metal band is ready for a new jump for quality. New target, idea and aim is to record next album in a fully professional and worldwide metal scene acclaimed studio.

Ledo Takas has got in touch with Hertz studio in Bialystok yet last year, but it was not until this April that studio was available to use, since it already had a long schedule far ahead. So, after this patient wait for one year, Lithuanians are starting their session in the middle of this coming April.

Obtest guitar player Sadlave claims: "It will be a very serious challenge for the band, and so far it is quite hard to foresee the end result, as we are used to a sound we create ourselves, but it's the very time to resolve for this step. Obtest have matured for new heights."

New album of pagan metallers has both name and concept already: 'Gyvybes Medis' ['The Tree of Life']. All music and most of the lyrics for it are already written. Apart the title track, some other titles include: '`viesa' ['Light'], 'Apeigos' ['Ceremonial'] and 'Tai Ne Pabaiga' ['It's not the End'].

Hertz studio has got its cult status thanks to two brothers Wojtek and Slawek Wieslawski, who are the main engines of it all. Such bands as Decapitated, Hate, Crionics, Devilyn, Hell-Born, Parricide, Dies Irae, Trauma, and legendary Vader have been using the skills of the two. None other but Vader are working in Hertz right now, with their new recording of old classics, and right after them in April studio is occupied by Obtest.

"We are really glad that Obtest will record their new album in our studio. We wait for them and we are ready for new challenge!", Wojtek Wieslawski comments on a new cooperation.

"You can compare recording session in Hertz studio with a sports world: Shift to a new league is never easy and implicit, yet it always inspires. New songs of Obtest are indeed of unusual vigour, so it would be a shame if it would lose part of its charm due to limited sound quality. Hertz mostly works with death metal sounding bands, yet there is not a single reason to doubt the Competence of brothers Wieslawski. I am sure that joined team of Polish sound engineers and Lithuanian musicians will reach a very good result", unhesitates Ledo Takas label chief Tadas Kazlauskas.

So far it's difficult to say if album mastering will also be accomplished in Hertz or some other studio. It will depend on how recording session will progress.

Obtest album 'Gyvybes Medis' is planned to be released in the fall of 2007.

The ten year anniversary re-release of the band's debut album, 'Tukstantmetis', via Ledo Takas will also happen. The debut was finished in spring of 1997, and initially released on tape April 23rd of the same year, to mark one thousand years since the murder of the first christian missionary on the Baltic shore, that happened on 23rd of April 1997. Since limited tape and CD editions are turning into much sought-after rarities nowadays, and to commemorate ten years after its initial release, Ledo Takas announce the CD re-release of the kult pagan/black metal classic with a code name: 'Tukstantmetis + 10'. The new slipcase edition will contain an improved and enhanced booklet, as well as liner notes written by the band, revealing the true story behind album recordings. The release is scheduled [you bet!] for April 23rd 2007, completed by a new short and long sleeve shirt edition with 'Tukstantmetis' design.

(source: Ledo Takas Records)