As Sensory Records prepares to release the eponymous debut album from international progressive metal quintet PHILOSOPHOBIA – formed by current and former members of Kamelot, Pain Of Salvation, Wastefall, and more – the record’s lead single has been issued. An official video for the song “Time To Breathe” is now playing through an exclusive premiere at Sonic Perspectives.
PHILOSOPHOBIA unites vocalist Domenik Papaemmanouil, bassist Kristoffer Gildenlöw, drummer Alex Landenburg, keyboardist Tobias Weißgerber, and guitarist Andreas Ballnus. The band is now preparing to issue their eponymous debut album via Sensory Records, the band’s top choice for its release, in conjunction with Kristoffer Gildenlöw‘s return to prog metal on stages worldwide since his departure from Pain Of Salvation.
Together with recording engineer and producer Phil Hillen (Powerwolf, Kamelot, Alyssa White Gluz), PHILOSOPHOBIA recorded an hour-long experience covering a wide range of textures; somber tunes to heavy prog metal tracks to instrumentally artistic roller coaster rides. Philosophobia was mastered by Alan Douches (Fates Warning, Redemption, Mastodon) at West West Side Music in New York, and completed with cover artwork conceived by Ballnus and created by Björn Gooßes/Killustrations.
With the album’s lead single, “Time To Breathe,” Ballnus reveals, “We chose this song as our first video single because it presents the band musically perfect. ‘Time To Breathe’ shows the calm parts as well as the heavy and fast parts which are representative for the album. It features fast and technical guitar solos and vocals going from soft to growling and aggressive. The song itself is about a personal experience with depression and the freedom you get back after you have overcome it and it finally is time to breathe. The video was shot on the Greek island Skyros, and in the Greek city of Piraeus.”
Watch PHILOSOPHOBIA’s striking “Time To Breathe” video first through Sonic Perspectives now at THIS LOCATION.
Sensory Records will release Philosophobia on CD and all digital platforms worldwide on June 24th. Find physical preorders at the label webshop HERE, and visit Bandcamp for the standard digital HERE and 24-bit hi-res digital HERE.
Stand by for additional official videos to be issued surrounding the release of Philosophobia, and for live dates to be announced in the months ahead.
In 2007, longtime friends Andreas Ballnus (Perzonal War) and Alex Landenburg (Kamelot, Cyrha, Mekong Delta) had the idea of creating a prog metal concept album. After recording a few demos, Landenburg joined Annihilator as their touring drummer while Ballnus became the guitarist for former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Dianno. With both touring around the world for years, unfortunately they had to postpone their prog adventure due to lack of time.
In 2018, Ballnus got in touch with Kristoffer Gildenlöw (ex-Pain Of Salvation, Kayak) for a book project he had written; the two soon became friends and when Kristoffer heard the demos Ballnus and Landenburg had recorded, he was blown away by the quality of the songs, and at that moment PHILOSOPHOBIA was born. Completed by keyboard wizard Tobias Weißgerber and vocalist Domenik Papaemmanouil (Wastefall), the recordings for the band’s debut album began in 2020 against all odds.
Landenburg and Ballnus headed to SU2 Studios in Southern Germany and recorded nine songs of which eight made it onto the album. In fact, six of them remained the same songs that were written in 2007. The two still felt that those songs were timeless and deserved to be recorded for the final album version.
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