After their immensely successful tour together with Metal legends Helloween and Gamma Ray in 2007/2008, German melodic metallers AXXIS strike back with another fantastic studio album. “Fantastic” is a fitting word here (not only quality-wise) because the bands takes us on a journey to “Utopia”. The musical direction hasn´t changed too much since their 2007 release “Doom Of Destiny”. Means: “Utopia” is a melodic Metal hurricane, varied in speed and arrangements, covering perfectly the area of melodic Power Metal as well as the classic Hard Rock sound that AXXIS stand for since their debut in the late 80´s. The band is breaking new grounds with “Fass Mich An”, their first album track in German language ever!

For “Utopia” AXXIS didn´t change the basics of their successful work. Means: producers Bernhard Weiß and Harry Oellers again recorded in their own Soundworxx studio and trusted in the services of Dennis Ward (who did the mixing) and Jürgen Lusky (the man responsible for the mastering of every AXXIS album since 2002). And again Derek Gores was responsible for the cover artwork.
Bernhard comments: "Recording-wise we put a lot of power into the guitar sound. Different amps, mic's and different guitars for each song. Everything should fit perfectly to the songs.

At the same time Harry was focused on his key-arrangements with new sounds and equipment. He recorded millions of keyboard tracks and it was not easy to decide which ones we should leave or erase. This time the songs were predestinated for a lot of musical stuff. By the end of the day the sound is really “FAT”. Okay, on a mp3 file you wouldn't get it”, laughs the singer.

”Utopia” is a step further, with less female vocals, more guitars, more keys, more bass and more musical parts. YES, these songs forced us to go this way, haha! It's good to have ALEX on the drums. His kind of drumming fits perfectly to these songs.”

Harry: "Rob and Marco were very enthusiastic during the recordings and production. They wrote the song “Taste My Blood” just to give “Utopia” another colour. Great. Was a lot of fun!"

On the 13 minutes long “20 Years Anniversary Song” a lot of popular guest musicians appear. “This is truly one of our highlights”, Harry Oellers confirms. “Good old friends and companions join us in this song with their great performances. ANDI DERIS (Helloween), SCHMIER (Destruction), DORO, CLAUS LESSMANN (Bonfire) DAVID READMAN (Pink Cream 69/Voodoo Circle), ROLF STAHLHOFEN (ex-Söhne Mannheims) our long-time friend WALTER PIETSCH (ex-AXXIS). Singer Bernhard Weiß adds: “We are totally overwhelmed about the reactions of these people. It only took a short email and everybody came back to us with a YES quickly, without any questions. DORO was on tour and because of the timing she has sung everything in a hotel room (must be stress, but she did it:-), ROLF wanted to come in our studio to let our good old rock´ n' roll memories come alive, ANDI and DAVID recorded their voices with full power directly after my request, SCHMIER left his mark with his super voice on the song, CLAUS delivered not only his voice but also squiers and second voices and WALTER has played his solos with heart and soul like ever. We really want to say THANXX to everybody and we're really proud to know such great people. THANXX!"

As the „20 Years Anniversary Song“ will be on the limited Digi Pak only, you better be fast and quickly grab your copy!

AXXIS celebrate their 20th anniversary in style. “Utopia” is past, present and future – and a must-have not only for fans of the band!

Genre: Power Metal

Date de Sortie: 28.08.2009