Avatar (Swedish band) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

History

The band was formed in 2001 by drummer

Drummer

A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

John Alfredsson and singer Christian Rimmi. After a turbulent start, the line up settled on the current one in the fall of 2003. Avatar has seen several European tours as supporting act for Impaled Nazarene

Impaled Nazarene

Impaled Nazarene is a Finnish black metal band that incorporates elements of grindcore in their sound and punk rock in their aesthetics. The band is currently signed to Osmose Productions of France....

(May 2006), Evergrey

Evergrey

Evergrey is a progressive metal band from Gothenburg, Sweden. The band was founded in 1995 and released its debut album The Dark Discovery in 1998. Their most recent album Glorious Collision was released in 2011.-Lyrical themes:...

(October - November 2006), In Flames

In Flames

In Flames is a Swedish heavy metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1990. Since the band's inception in 1993, they have released ten studio albums and one live DVD...

(March 2007), Obituary

Obituary

An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...

(January - February 2008), Hardcore Superstar

Hardcore Superstar

Hardcore Superstar is a hard rock band from Gothenburg, Sweden. The band was formed in 1997 and continue on today. Hardcore Superstar have had several #1 hit singles, and Grammy wins in Sweden.-Bad Sneakers and a Piña Colada:...

(October - November 2009), Warrior Soul

Warrior Soul

Warrior Soul is an American hard rock band formed by lead singer Kory Clarke, guitarist Cliff St. Croix , later replaced by John Ricco, later replaced by Alex, a Scotsman living in New York City , and guitarist Chris Moffett. Then Peter Jay Tsudis...

(March - April 2010), Dark Tranquillity

Dark Tranquillity

Dark Tranquillity is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Gothenburg. They are one of the longest-standing bands from the original Gothenburg metal scene, and are one of the most integral pioneers of the melodic death metal genre of music....

(October - November 2010) and Helloween

Helloween

Helloween is a German power metal band founded in the mid 1980s by members of Iron Fist and Powerfool. The band was a pioneering force in the European Power Metal movement and their second and third studio albums, Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt...

(December 2010 - January 2011).
The band has performed on several of the larger music festivals in Sweden, e.g. Sweden Rock Festival

Sweden Rock Festival

Sweden Rock Festival is an annual rock/metal festival held in Sweden since 6 June 1992. While having a clear rock/metal focus, the festival is noted for its diversity across these genres, having featured southern rock bands such as Molly Hatchet to death metal legends like Obituary.The first...

, Arvikafestivalen and Storsjöyran

Storsjöyran

Storsjöyran, or just Yran is an annual Swedish musical event going back to the early sixties.-Festival history:...

.

Schlacht, the second album by Avatar was released in October 2007, reaching spot 27 on the Swedish album chart. Björn Gelotte

Björn Gelotte

Björn Gelotte is a songwriter and guitarist for the Swedish band, In Flames. He joined the band as the drummer in 1995, and continued his position as drummer during The Jester Race and Whoracle . Gelotte switched to his current position on guitars after Niklas Engelin left the band, sharing...

from In Flames

In Flames

In Flames is a Swedish heavy metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1990. Since the band's inception in 1993, they have released ten studio albums and one live DVD...

contributed a guitar solo

Guitar solo

In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...

on the track Letters From Neverend.

The bands third album, the self-titled Avatar, was released in Sweden in November 2009 reaching the 36th position on the national album chart. Most of the year up until the release of the album was spent in the studio. In January 2010 the band signed with Sony Music for the German and Swiss release of the latest album on March 26, 2010. In April of the same year a deal was signed with the Japanese label Art Union, for a May 19 launch of the album.

StarCraft

In January 2010 the music video for the song Queen of Blades was released on the bands website. Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher founded on February 8, 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of UCLA, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce and currently owned by French company Activision Blizzard...

mentioned this on their Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

and Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

pages, since the song is about the character Sarah Kerrigan

Sarah Kerrigan

Sarah Louise Kerrigan, the self-styled Queen of Blades, is a major character and the predominant villain in Blizzard Entertainment's StarCraft series of video games and novels. The character was created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney, and her appearance was originally designed by Chris Metzen...

from their game Starcraft

StarCraft

StarCraft is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game of the StarCraft series was released for Microsoft Windows on 31 March 1998. With more than 11 million copies sold worldwide as of February 2009, it is one of the best-selling...

, giving the band much attention among the game's many fans.

Current members

Johannes Eckerström - vocals
Jonas Jarlsby - guitars
Simon Andersson - guitars
Henrik Sandelin - bass
John Alfredsson - drums

Albums

2006 - Thoughts of No Tomorrow
2007 - Schlacht
2009 - Avatar

Reviews

Schlacht reviewed by Groove (Swedish music magazine)
Avatar reviewed by Hallandsposten
Hallandsposten
Hallandsposten is a newspaper printed in Halmstad, Sweden, that was founded 1850. It is the major newspaper of Halmstad, Hylte and Laholm municipalities. It is printed daily since 1900, before that it was printed two times a week. It has a distribution of 32,000.- External links :*...

(Regional Swedish newspaper)
Avatar reviewed by Göteborgsposten (Swedish newspaper)
Avatar reviewed by FuryRocks
Avatar reviewed by Metal Temple

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.