When the current millennium began, a new future lay ahead for the guys from Methusalem. Having all been previously involved in death and gothic metal bands, they believed it was time to pay homage to the past. And hey, they had about a thousand years before some bug would destroy the world again, so there was plenty of time! And so Methusalem was founded, the basic idea being to create a modern form of old school heavy metal. With their latest album Unite and Conquer, Methusalem has succeeded in bringing various old school metal styles together in 9 completely different songs, but all undeniably Methusalem.
When the band started, the music that was made was mostly inspired by the great bands from the eighties that still survive today. The result of that was that Methusalem’s first demo got great reviews like ‘easily the best demo I’ve heard in a decade’, which is great to hear, ‘very maidenesque’ and ‘cliché’ In this first demo-period, Methusalem got to do some awesome gigs in Holland, Germany and Belgium and they got to do a short tour in Spain.
With the new MCD being written and recorded in 2005, Methusalem decided it was best to take the cliché’s the a new level. If people think you’re not that original, then why not make that your unique selling point? So Methusalem wrote five songs about metal, rock and guitars, resulting in the ‘Sentenced to Rock’ MCD. Reviews were great, Lords of Metal called it the Dutch album of the month, and the cliché’s were appreciated by the fans! Songs like Heavy Metal Gods and Sentenced to Rock turned out to be real catchy songs, making the audiences scream for more. The MCD also got Methusalem a tour with metalgod Blaze Bayley, touring Europe with his band Blaze.
In 2008 Methusalem decided that it was time for a new, full-length album. The band, this time, threw overboard all biases about how heavy metal should sound and listened very carefully to what producer Arno Krabman from Graveland Studios had to say about their current style. The result is an album that features a bunch of songs that are all miles apart, some more traditional, some more modern, yet all fitting perfectly into Methusalem’s philosophy. That philosophy is still to rock the world with hard rock and heavy metal, but in stead of living in the past, they’ve now made an album that remembers the past.
The album was mastered by an international mastering professional, Darius van Helfteren, who had also previously worked with Judas Priest and the Scorpions. He gave the album that last edge that it needed to sound truly great. Finnish graphic designer Jan Yrlund was asked to create the artwork and succeeded in capturing the overall lyrical theme of the album in the cover artwork.
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