AOR Heaven have announced their April 24 releases: the new Serpentine album “Circle Of Knives” and the re-issue of Miss Behaviour’s 2011 album “Last Woman Standing”.
SERPENTINE:
The bands origins can be traced to Cardiff, Wales, where in 2007 keyboard player Gareth David Noon, original bassist Gareth Vanstone and guitarist Chris Gould were put into contact with Birmingham based singer Tony Mills, whose reputation with other melodic rock acts such as Shy and TNT made him an obvious choice for the band.
With a vast catalogue of demos, the four set about creating a collection of songs for what would become their 2010 debut album "A Touch Of Heaven". The album was produced by Sheena Sear and Mark Stuart, British Producers whose work with Magnum as well as rock icons such as Robert Plant and Phil Lynott is well known. Serpentine subsequently inked deals with German based label AOR Heaven and the Japanese label Marquee/Avalon and the album was released in March of 2010 to much critical acclaim, especially in Japan where the band hit the TOP 30 on the National ROCK chart as well as scoring a 92% review in the rock magazine Burrn!
In the summer of 2010 work began on the follow-up album, unfortunately in the December of that year, with the band geared up to return to the studio, Mills announced his departure following a heart-attack at a Norway airport but committed to finish the ‘Living & Dying in High Definition’ album with the band. Not resting upon their laurels and with live work in the offing Serpentine quickly moved to recruit Matt Black, a singer working in the rock covers band ‘Six Of The Best’ and who they felt had the stage presence and vocal range to pull off the Mills material live.
Serpentine hit the road with Black in March 2011 first appearing at a showcase in London with Houston, and later as part of a tour with Crashdiet. ‘Living & Dying in High Definition’ was released in September 2011 with sections of the press gushing that the band could well have “delivered the album of their lives”. Festivals dates at Firefest, Hard Rock Hell, Rockfest Madrid, HRH AOR and HEAT Festival in Germany followed as well as tours with Ten, Romeo’s Daughter and FM while Noon and Gould worked up musical ideas for their third album.
After having toured with Gary Hughes of Ten during the summer of 2012, the band met with him several months later in the north-west of England with their management to assess the demos they had amassed over the previous year and to iron out details of a collaboration/producer role for their next record. A year later, and with the material all but finalized, Matt Black left the band citing his will to move in a different direction musically. A few weeks later and after a period of ill health, Gareth Vanstone also bowed out. SERPENTINE quickly moved to recruit Adam Payne - a singer whose talent had come to their attention after hearing his voice on a track with his former band ‘Tidal’ - and prodigiously talented bassist Owen Crawford from ‘Triaxis’. The new look Serpentine entered Gary Hughes’ Doghouse Studio in Blackpool to record their new opus - ‘Circle of Knives’. The band had also lined up Neil Kernon to mix the record, but after a short time working together the sound emerging from the mixes were not what the band had envisaged, and so Sheena Sear who had produced and mixed the bands previous two records stepped in to finalise the mix.
Payne and Crawford made their live debuts with SERPENTINE at Planet Rockstock and a warm up date at EVI in Ebbw Vale in late 2014 and the band are now approaching a release date for their new album ‘Circle of Knives’ on AOR Heaven with live dates in 2015 kicking off with an appearance at this year’s HardRockHell AOR3 Festival in March.
Track list: 1. Season of the Witch 2. La Tragedienne 3. Forever 4. The Hardest Fall 5. Bleed 6. Where Does Your Heart Beat Now? 7. Bound By The Strings of Discord 8. Circle Of Knives 9. Such A Long Way Down 10. Suicide Days
Band: ADAM PAYNE - VOCALS, GARETH DAVID NOON - KEYBOARDS/VOCALS, CHRISTOPHER GOULD - GUITARS, OWEN CRAWFORD - BASS/VOCALS, ROY MILLWARD - DRUMS/PERCUSSION
Soundfiles in advance:
Web:
Miss Behaviour - The Biography
The story of Miss Behaviour goes back to 2004. Keyboard player Henrik Sproge and guitarist Erik Heikne were both studying Music Management at the Baltic Business School in Kalmar, Sweden, when the idea of Miss Behaviour first came up. With a great passion for 80's melodic hard rock and AOR, they decided to start the band to express their vision of how a modern rock band, inspired by the great bands of the eighties should sound.
The first Miss Behaviour songs where written in a student apartment in Kalmar in late 2004 and ended up at the 3-song EP Give us the world. Miss Behavior worked and still do with producer/technician Daniel Gese who had a career as drummer/producer with his 80’s metal/sleaze band Pole Position in the late 80s/early 90s.
After the debut album Heart of Midwinter was released in 2006, Henrik and Erik decided to recruit the new lead singer Sebastian Roos, a quite well known singer in Sweden, with a lot of touring, TV and radio performances and Eurovision song contest on his CV. The breakthrough came with the Album Last Woman Standing, released in 2011. In spring 2011 Miss Behaviour competed in Swedish national radio with the song Till we meet again, making the première live performance with the current lineup in front of 400000 radio listeners. Joining forces with former Backyard Babies manager Michael Sundén in 2011 the band hit the roads in the UK.
Late 2011, after touring the UK with CrashDiet, the album Last Woman Standing won the Melodic.net ”Best AoR album of 2011” readers poll with 23% of the votes, leaving bands like Journey, Robin Beck, Work of Art and more behind. The reviews were fantastic and the album got top scores in important magazines, such as Classic Rock (UK), Sweden Rock Magazine (Sweden) and more.
UK Magazine Classic Rock picked Cynthia as one of the best tracks in 2011, and featured the song on the compilation Classic Rock Buzz. Miss Behaviour returned to the UK on the Smokehead Rocks Tour, playing another 10 dates and finished the tour with a sold out show at O2 Islington Academy in London, Oktober 12, 2011. In the middle of the song writing and recordings of the new album Michael Sundén tragically passed, in a horrible accident at venue Rock City, Nottingham. This loss took a while to recover from but finally the brand new album Double Agent was finished and received great feedback in the press last year.
Last Woman Standing - Re-Issue
Last Woman Standing (2011) was the band’s breakthrough album. "Cynthia" was selected one of the best songs of 2011 by Classic Rock (Melodic BUZZ CD). The single "Till we meet again" premiered live in Swedish national radio with 200k+ listeners. The video had over 60000 views.
The Bonus material (* tracks 12 & 13): These songs were written in 2011 and recorded in a new session whit the new members Niclas Lindblom (Bass) and Magnus Jacobson (drums). The same line-up that consists today and played two UK-tours back in 2011 and 2012.
Tracklist: 1. 1988, 2. Cynthia, 3. Give Her A Sign, 4. Perfect War, 5. Average Hero, 6. Till We Meet Again, 7. Taking Hostage, 8. Emergency, 9. Living The Dream, 10. Last Woman Standing, 11. 11th Hour, 12. Run 2 You*, 13. True Man Show*
Soundfiles:
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