Here's some info on some of the bands. 
 
 

  The band were formed in late´92 by Mikael Sandorf (vocals),  
  Andreas Johansson (drums), Stefan Nilsson (guitar) and Harald  
  Åberg (bass). After some time the guys felt that there were  
  something missing in the band so they started to ask around for  
  another guitarplayer, and after a while Tomas Jutenfäldt joined  
  the band. The band started to rehearse for a demorecording but  
  many things happened on their way towards the "SEASONS OF  
  FROST" demo. . . First they began to search for a name for the band  
  and Harald were the guy to find one. . . GATES OF ISHTAR were the  
  obvious name for their music and opinions. Andreas designed the  
  logo and now their journey started. . .  

  In early May 1995 the demo "SEASONS OF FROST" were recorded in  
  the Lucichrist studio. The response that came for the demo were  
  great so GATES OF ISHTAR signed for one full-length album on the  
  Finnish label SPINEFARM REC. After a year of songwriting, the debut  
  CD "A BLOODRED PATH" were recorded in the Finnish studio  
  TICO-TICO in early´96. The record were released by Spinefarm in  
  June´96 and the response were very good everywhere. . . Many  
  offers came from other labels and because of the bad promotion  
  from Spinefarm, GATES OF ISHTAR changed their label to German  
  label INVASION RECORDS. A contract for two full-length albums were  
  signed and the band started to work on their second CD "THE DAWN  
  OF FLAMES".  
  Now a big change took place. Oskar & Niklas left the band because of  
 personal disagreements between all the members. The gates asked Henrik if he  
wanted to play drums on the album and he joined the band again. Mikael started to  
work on some songs together with Andreas. After some time they started to rehearse  
on the new material for "THE DAWN OF FLAMES". It didn´t take much time  
for the guys to understand that they needed a bassplayer for the album, so  
Tomas asked an old friend, Danjel Röhr, if he were interested and Danjel became  
a session musician for "THE DAWN OF FLAMES". In early ´97 the time had  
come to enter the studio UNISOUND so Gates Of Ishtar traveled to Örebro  
and met up with the studioguy, DAN SWANÖ, to record the second album  
"THE DAWN OF FLAMES". The recording went great and INVASION REC  
got the CD out right on time. . .On the 25:th of Mars 1997 the album "THE  
DAWN OF FLAMES" were released worldwide. . .   

1-Mikael Stanne -Vocals 
2-Anders Jivarp - Drums 
3.-Niklas Sundin- guitars 
4.-Martin Henriksson - Bass 
5.-Fredrik Johansson -  Guitar 

Ex members- Anders Friden - Vocals (Now in the also cool band "In Flames") 

Band Formed: December 1989 
Releases/year 
"TRAIL OF LIFE DECAYED" - 91 
"A MOONCLAD REFLECTION" -92 exhumed productions 
"SKYDANCER" - 93 
"OF CHAOS AND ETERNAL NIGHT" - 95 
"THE GALLERY" - 95 
"ENTER SUICIDAL ANGELS" -96 (this one has a cool techno track which I found interesting) 
"THE MIND'S I" -97 
"ZODIJACKYL LIGHT"(video) - I'm not sure this is out 

 
 The Therion are:  
     Christoffer Johnson - guitar, keyboards 
     Piotr Wawrzeniuk - drums, vocals 
     Lars Rosenberg - bass 
     Jonas Mellberg - guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards 

1987 there was a band formed under the monicker BLITZKRIEG. After a year of 
sounding like a mixture between Venom, old Metallica, Motorhead and Slayer, 
the band broke up by several reasons, only to reform some months later under 
the new name THERION. Mainman Christofer Johnsson switched to guitar 
and a new bassplayer was brought into the band. The musical direction 
was changed into death metal which at that time was considered as quite 
odd. With this line-up and direction the band was going to start their musical 
career and to gain a lot of success during the years. 

During 1989 the band managed to record two demos and a 4-track Mini-LP, 
which was released by a local recordstore as a limited 1000 copies 
press the year after. From the success of these recordings, Therion got 
their first record deal, which happened to be with Deaf Records - a sublabel 
to Peaceville Records in England. The debut album, entitled ”Of Darkness”, 
was recorded August 1990 at the Sunlight Studio, Stockholm and was 
released the year after. It contained only songs written from 1987 - 89 as the 
band felt that they were progressing in a diffrent direction and saved 
the later songs for a future album. The response was great even though 
the album only contained old songs and Therion got known as one of 
the bigger death metal acts from Sweden at that time. 

Recordlabels is something that Therion has been forced to change quite a 
few times and the first time was at this point, as the band felt that 
they didn't get the kind of support that they were in need of from 
the record company. They signed up with Active Records instead - 
another english label, and recorded their second album ”Beyond Sanctorum”. 
The recording was done in December - 91 at theMontezuma Studio, and 
the result showed a more progressive and challenging band than on the debut. 
There were new elements such as keyboards and female vocals included, 
which was very unusual for a death metal band back then. The response 
was mixed as such elements were hard to accept for some conservative 
death metal fans, but the main part of the metalscene where very supportive 
to this new direction, which was pointing out which way Therion was heading. 

By this time the band was thrown into a very hard period as Oskar expected his second child and felt 
that he would taking his responsability better by leaving the band and consentrate more on his family, 
Erik had moved back to Texas, USA along with his family and Peter wanted to progress in a totally 
diffrent musical direction (more in the vein of pop music - which was of course nothing he could 
expect out of Therion). Christofer was completely sole and as the efforts from the recordcompany 
wasn't as great as he had expected, Therion had almost split up. But he didn't give up and got the 
band together again with a completely new line-up. 
With this new metal crew he did some minor touring in Holland/Belgium/Sweden before they signed to 
the swedish label Megarock Records and put together the third album (again in the Montezuma 
Studio), which had the the cryptic title ”Symphony Masses: Ho Drakon Ho Megas”. It was an 
experimental album mixing death metal with symphonic influences, arabic folkmusic, industrial and 80's 
heavy metal. For some people this album was too much, but the average response was very good and 
the band took another step forward. Some more minor touring was made before the next line-up 
problems appeared. Both Magnus and Andreas choosed to leave the band due to financial reasons - 
Therion wasn't exactly a gold mine back then, but still required a lot of hard work that took a 
considerable amount of time. So line-up number 3 was quickly put together, featuring only a new 
bassplayer. Therion was now a trio and they did their first big tour together with Samael, Grave and 
Massacra. 

Even though the fact that Megarock was working very hard to promote the band, they never managed 
to get Therion to the expected level and another recordcompany was contacted. This was the german 
label Nuclear Blast Records, which was the label Therion had been searching for all the time. Their 
fourth effort Lepaca Kliffoth was recorded in the wellknown Music Lab Studio in Berlin and was 
produced by Harris Johns. This was a bigger step for Therion who did both a german tour supporting 
Annihilator as well as one as headliners that covered Europe and Mexico. The music had progressed 
even more in the symphonic direction and the all time classic track ”Beauty In Black” (which was also 
released on a MCD with the same title which came out some months before the full lenghts album) 
featured melancholic symphonic arrangements as well as some opera singing, partly done by Claudia 
Maria Mokri (known from the legendary album ”Into The Pandemonium” by Celtic Frost). It showed 
that the band was going toward a seriously orchestral and opera influenced direction. After getting rid 
of Fredrik due to personal problems that didn't fit into the band anymore, Therion toured as headliners 
in South America (with session members) and serious plans of doing the ultimate symphonic album of 
the decade was made. 

A new line up featuring both Lars Rosenberg (ex Entombed) and Jonas Mellberg (ex Unanimated) 
entered the Impuls Studio in Hamburg to spend the biggest recording budget in the history of Nuclear 
Blast Records. Besides the Barmbek Symphony Orchestra, two full choirs were hired. One was the 
North German Radio Choir who contributed with mighty opera singing and the other was a 
proffessional rock choir called The Siren Choir. The results from one and a half month of heavy work 
in the studio along with two different producers (one classic and one metal producer) was the mighty 
opus entitled ”Theli”. This album became the bands long awaited break through and sold close to 
100,000 copies including licensed tapes to East Europe. Very extensive touring was done over 
Europe. One long tour with Amorphis and one two week festival tour with My Dying Bride, 
Sentenced, Secret Discovery and Sundown as well as headline shows in Greece and the Dynamo 
festival in front of a 25,000 person crowd was done. Unfortunatly Piotr had decided to pick up 
studying instead of continuing the life of touring and there had been big problems with alcohol in the 
band so most of the shows were done with session musicians as there had been no other option than 
to fire both Jonas and Lars due to that reason. 

1997 is the 10 year Anniversary for Therion, and due to this fact, there has been a special jubileum 
CD released, containing covers, unreleased tracks from the Theli-session, a re-recording of a track 
from the second album and a classic soundtrack that Christofer composed and recorded with the 
Barmbek Symphony Orchestra and the North German Radio Choir to appear in a artfilm entitled 
”The Golden Embrace”. Even though this is not to be regarded as a real Therion CD, the sales has 
been massive and a european tour is to be set up. 
 

In Flames is the name of a metal act from Gothenburg, Sweden. Musically they elaborate
with a quite innovative form of guitar oriented Death/Heavy metal. Melodic, but at the
same time raging, twin guitar riffs along with a strong touch of northern folkmusic are
signums for the band.
In Flames was originally formed in the fall of 1990. In February of 1993 some line-up
changes occured and the band also changed their name to In Flames. In August of 1993
they entered Studio Fredman to record their debut promo ( called "Promo-93"), which
contained three songs; "In Flames", "Upon An Oaken Throne" and "Clad In Shadows".
Just a few months later the Swedish independent label Wrong Again Records, became
interested and signed the band.
In December of 1993, In Flames entered Studio Fredman once again and recorded their
debut full length album, entitled "Lunar Strain". The album contained ten songs and was
released in August of 1994. In December of 1994, the band recorded four new songs for a
mini-cd (Subterranean), to be released by Wrong Again Records (released in September
1995). These songs also appears as bonustracks on the Japanese version of "Lunar
Strain", released by Toys Factory. In early 1995 they contributed with one song on the
"Metal Meilitia" compilation-album (Black Sun Records), which is a tribute to
Metallica-cd. This song also appears on the Japanese version of "Lunar Strain". You can
also find tunes of the band on another compilation-cd, released through Wrong Again
Records. This album is entitled; "W.A.R. Compilation - Volume 1" and include bands such
as Eucharist, Miscreant, Dark Tranquillity, Katatonia etc.
In Flames recorded a album in late 95, it is entitled "The Jesterrace" and it´ was released
in the summer of 96. This time Anders Fridén did the vocals and he´s now a member of the
band. Anders is former vocalist of Dark Tranquillity and Ceremonial Oath. 
The latest album "Whoracle" was released at Nuclear Blast in the autumn of 97 and it have
got many great revievs 
in the biggest metal magazines. 
If you want to download MP3's of these bands, then go to my "links" section.