For fans of (early) Eucharist, In Flames & Amorphis.
Back in 1994 in a town called Naestved in the South of Sealand, Denmark, Michael H. Andersen used most of his spare time working on his fanzine Emanzipation. 19 year old still living with his parents, MHA was about to get an awakening. He had recently fell in love with the first demo tape from Eucharist and an advance tape for the upcoming In Flames album and loved the direction At The Gates and Amorphis was heading. Almost no one in the circle of musicians in the South of Sealand had any idea what those bands were all about. This is before internet and in the outskirts of Denmark, so all information about new bands was through tape trading or the records the local record store managed to get and occasionally the trip to record stores in capital city Copenhagen.
The Danish scene back then mainly had focus on brutal death metal and hardcore/thrash. MHA wanted to start up what he thought would be the first Danish melo-death band. After having meet two equally minded metal fans at a local metal show, Jimmy Christensen and Kaspar Boye-Larsen, and approaching Allan Tvedebrink from the local thrash band Mortifere and adding Jakob Gundel from MHAs other band Crawcell, the first melo-death band in Denmark was born. A few rehearsals later and a search for the perfect band name, Withering Surface was a reality in late 1994. Just six months later the four young guys, aging from 14 to 21, entered the Take-One studio for 3 days where four songs were recorded, mixed and mastered with producer Casper Munko, who had previously worked with Dominus among others. The result was “Unique”. A recording that was baptized a “promo tape” and sold close to 2000 copies worldwide through the underground scene with trades, and physical money bills sent to MHA. The four songs also ended up being licensed for cassette release South America.
“Unique” now sees the light of day again on vinyl release. Henrik West at Medley Studio was handed over three versions of the original “Unique” cassettes to do a digital re-master of for vinyl release. Not an easy job, but he pulled it through. What you hear in the year 2021, is a raw recording from a young band with various musical directions and inspirations trying to find their own music style. Does it stand the test of time? Yes.
“Unique” is now released on vinyl in 300 copies on 3 different vinyl colours (100 copies of each vinyl color).
Withering Surface went on to record four albums, played numerous profile shows and tours around the world from 1995 to 2005, Wacken and Roskilde among others, touring with Arch Enemy, Opeth and Dimmu Borgir etc., being Grammy-nominated etc. until the band took a 15 year break and did a successful comeback in 2020 with the album “Meet Your Maker” and a handful of well-attended shows (a lot of shows got canceled, including Copenhell, due to covid19). Currently the band is writing material for the upcoming album and looks forward touring in 2022.
“Unique” will be re-released on vinyl LP (transparent gold, transparent silver, and black, each limited to 100 copies each) by Mighty Music on December 24th, 2021.
Recording Line-up in 1995:
Kaspar Boye Larsen - bass
Jakob Gundel - drums
Allan Tvedebrink - guitar
Jimmy Christensen - guitar
Michael H. Andersen - vocals
Webshop:
https://targetshop.dk/withering-surface
Web:
Facebook
Instagram
Spotify
Back in 1994 in a town called Naestved in the South of Sealand, Denmark, Michael H. Andersen used most of his spare time working on his fanzine Emanzipation. 19 year old still living with his parents, MHA was about to get an awakening. He had recently fell in love with the first demo tape from Eucharist and an advance tape for the upcoming In Flames album and loved the direction At The Gates and Amorphis was heading. Almost no one in the circle of musicians in the South of Sealand had any idea what those bands were all about. This is before internet and in the outskirts of Denmark, so all information about new bands was through tape trading or the records the local record store managed to get and occasionally the trip to record stores in capital city Copenhagen.
The Danish scene back then mainly had focus on brutal death metal and hardcore/thrash. MHA wanted to start up what he thought would be the first Danish melo-death band. After having meet two equally minded metal fans at a local metal show, Jimmy Christensen and Kaspar Boye-Larsen, and approaching Allan Tvedebrink from the local thrash band Mortifere and adding Jakob Gundel from MHAs other band Crawcell, the first melo-death band in Denmark was born. A few rehearsals later and a search for the perfect band name, Withering Surface was a reality in late 1994. Just six months later the four young guys, aging from 14 to 21, entered the Take-One studio for 3 days where four songs were recorded, mixed and mastered with producer Casper Munko, who had previously worked with Dominus among others. The result was “Unique”. A recording that was baptized a “promo tape” and sold close to 2000 copies worldwide through the underground scene with trades, and physical money bills sent to MHA. The four songs also ended up being licensed for cassette release South America.
“Unique” now sees the light of day again on vinyl release. Henrik West at Medley Studio was handed over three versions of the original “Unique” cassettes to do a digital re-master of for vinyl release. Not an easy job, but he pulled it through. What you hear in the year 2021, is a raw recording from a young band with various musical directions and inspirations trying to find their own music style. Does it stand the test of time? Yes.
“Unique” is now released on vinyl in 300 copies on 3 different vinyl colours (100 copies of each vinyl color).
Withering Surface went on to record four albums, played numerous profile shows and tours around the world from 1995 to 2005, Wacken and Roskilde among others, touring with Arch Enemy, Opeth and Dimmu Borgir etc., being Grammy-nominated etc. until the band took a 15 year break and did a successful comeback in 2020 with the album “Meet Your Maker” and a handful of well-attended shows (a lot of shows got canceled, including Copenhell, due to covid19). Currently the band is writing material for the upcoming album and looks forward touring in 2022.
“Unique” will be re-released on vinyl LP (transparent gold, transparent silver, and black, each limited to 100 copies each) by Mighty Music on December 24th, 2021.
Recording Line-up in 1995:
Kaspar Boye Larsen - bass
Jakob Gundel - drums
Allan Tvedebrink - guitar
Jimmy Christensen - guitar
Michael H. Andersen - vocals
Webshop:
https://targetshop.dk/withering-surface
Web:
Spotify
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