Viking Land : ABOUT KARLAHAN

It all started in late 2006 in Barcelona, when Guillem (guitars and clean vocals) decided to found a new band with a different aim than his previous one, a heavy metal band where he played together with Sergi (bass) and Victor (drums). First he just thought about it as a musical project, together with Victor and Toni, a guy from his school who had a hell of a voice. But in the end Sergi (bass) joined, since they had been playing together in his previous band and the search for the missing members started. It wasn’t until Jordi (guitars), a guy from St Cugat, a town near Barcelona, found a message in a web site about a Metal band from Barcelona looking for a guitarist and a keyboardist that band was completed. The rest of the band asked Jordi if he knew any keyboard players and he remembered that Ivó (synths) used to play the piano before playing drums in a band together with other friends of him. So he just asked him and he agreeded. The first rehearsals had started without the last 2 members, but all of them started working together very smoothly, and from that point Jordi also helped Guillem with the compositions and specially on the lyrics.

From this point the first compositions started and the band started practicing some of the songs. In Summer 2007 they started to record a demo song called “Twilight” at Jordi’s house. It took quite a lot of time, but finally it was completed and it recieved very good critics. In Autum 2007 the band started playing gigs in different local venues in Barcelona and surroundings and it was in this period when the band noticed that the German band Equilibrium were organising a contest whose winner would participate in their forthcoming album “Sagas”. They didn’t have many hopes, but in the end they recorded a vocal cover of “Der Sturm” and they also sent their own song “Twilight”. Finally they won the contest and during December they travelled to Hellion Studios Munchen, where they recorded some parts in 2 of the songs, both in the vocal parts.

By then, some changes occurred in the band, our former drummer Victor and our former keyboard player Ivó left the band. Victor was replaced by another great drummer, Aleix, and the band decided not to look for another keyboard player since the orchestrations were far too complex to be played by just one person. The 4th of October of 2008, Karlahan flew to Munich to play at the Helion Festival. This boosted the band one step forward in their live performances and made it possible to broaden their popularity. They played together with bands like Equilibrium, Helfahrt, Sycronomica, Dark Seed, Varg...

2009 is a new year for Karlahan and this means a change in few aspects of the band. They have really forgotten the "folk thing" in their music, and have developed it in a more experimental way, always keeping the orchestral parts mixed with all kinds of metal (melodic death metal, black metal, progressive metal, thrash metal...). So no more folk metal. Their aim is to make orchestral metal in a more original way, experimenting with new sounds, scales and musics. This meant that the old songs of the band didn't really show what the band is nowadays, so they will change the name of their first demo for another one which still has to be decided. Moreover, the demo will be separated in two parts, a first one with "the old stuff" and a new one with "the new stuff". Unfortuately this means that it will be delayed, but we hope to be able to release it somewhen this year. So many changes in the band recently, too bad that they can't be shown yet to everybody.

Finally, the new album will be produced by our guitarist Jordi Bolibar and our mate from the scottish band Concept of Time, Scott McLean due to personal reasons. We feel this is the way it has to be, and we will have much more control on our future without depending on others. We have been waiting for this for too long, so we really need to release some stuff to promote ourselves. This doesn't mean the quality will be bad, we have been testing really nice sofware and we are sure the results won't disappoint anybody. We just hope this accelerates everything and we can release our long-awaited first album in the end. The new Karlahan album will be entitled "A Portrait of Life" and will be released somwhen this summer. No official release has been set yet, but as soon as things start to enclose it will be announced
According to Karlahan !