Dante (rock band)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dante
General information
origin Augsburg , Germany
Genre (s) Progressive metal
founding 2006
Website www.danteband.de
Founding members
Markus Berger (until 2013, †)
Markus Maichel
Current occupation
Alexander Göhs (since 2006)
Markus Maichel
Julian Kellner (since 2015)
Christian Eichlinger (since 2006)
former members
Michael Neumeier (2008-2011)
Markus A. Bader (2011-2015)

Dante is a German progressive metal band from Augsburg .

history

Dante was founded by guitarist Markus Berger and keyboardist Markus Maichel in 2006. The singer Alexander Göhs, with whom Markus Berger had already worked in the band Twelve, and the drummer Christian Eichlinger joined the band in the same year.

With this line-up, the band produced their debut album The Inner Circle in the band's own Hidden Studios , which was released in 2008 on their own. The bass on this album was played by the band's guitarist and producer, Markus Berger. The singer of the band, Alexander Göhs, is responsible for the cover design and the artwork.

Taking advantage of the promotion opportunities offered by the Internet, Dante opened up a small, international fan base with The Inner Circle , but did not appear live.

In 2008 the bassist Michael Neumaier became a permanent member of the band Dante. In July 2010, again produced by Markus Berger, the band's second album entitled Saturnine was released on the Californian label ProgRock Records (USA) . As with the debut, Alexander Göhs took on the design of the cover and artwork this time in collaboration with the photo artists Christina Bulka and Benjamin Rennen.

Both of Dante's albums received mostly positive reviews internationally, whereby the stylistic closeness to the band Dream Theater , but also to the bands Yes , Savatage or Demon is emphasized again and again . In July 2010 the album Saturnine reached number 4 on the monthly soundcheck at powermetal.de.

In an interview from 2010 with the music journalist Rüdiger Stehle, Markus Berger (at that time still guitarist of the band) announced another album by the band.

In February 2011 the band announced that Michael Neumeier had left Dante for professional reasons. At the same time, another guitarist, Markus A. Bader, joined the official line-up. As a result, Markus Berger switched to the electric bass and thus took over the vacant position of Michael Neumeier.

In this line-up, the third album November Red was recorded and produced, which was released on January 25, 2013 by Massacre Records .

On January 5, 2013, the band announced the death of Markus Berger on their blog and on various social media platforms. Alexander Göhs announced the intention of the remaining musicians to continue the band in the spirit of the deceased member, the position of bassist is still vacant. During the tour of the November Red album , the deceased musician's recorded bass tracks were apparently used. From April 2014 Mathias Schmid appeared, supporting the band live as the second guitarist, until the end of the same year. Dante announced on her Facebook page in July 2014 that she was working on the successor to November Red . In 2015 Markus A. Bader left the band after four years. Julian Kellner, who has also been with the band Blind Ego since 2017, took over the post of the now only guitarist on a permanent basis.

When We Were Beautiful is the title of the fourth album. The album was released on March 18, 2016 via Gentle Arts of Music.

On May 18, 2016 DANTE performed together with Art Of Illusion and Pendragon in the Silesian Theater Katowice, Poland. A DVD was also recorded there. In 2017, the label Gentle Art of Music released their first live album entitled Where Life Was Beautiful , which includes both a DVD and two audio CDs.

style

In the public perception, the musical style of the band is usually assigned to progressive metal and / or progressive rock . An essential characteristic of Dante's music is the genre-typical excess length of the songs with long instrumental parts. In their compositions, Dante combine metal guitar work with complex keyboard arrangements. Stylistically, the songs show parallels to the classic progressive rock of the 1970s, but the influences of modern progressive metal bands usually predominate. The music of the American progressive metal band Dream Theater is usually used as a reference point in reviews of Dante's albums.

The band itself names older bands such as Pink Floyd , Emerson, Lake and Palmer , Yes and the early Genesis , as well as contemporary representatives of the genre such as Neal Morse , Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree as significant influences .

Dante's lyrics repeatedly deal with the relationship of the individual to his environment, with the themes of loss, love, alienation and emotional isolation playing a central role on the band's first two albums, The Inner Circle and Saturnine .

“I think that it's mainly the melancholy that runs through our music and the lyrics. We want to offer a total artistic package of good music, good, lyrical lyrics and beautiful artwork. We find the thoughtful-melancholy artistically more exciting. Nevertheless, it's never about the only negative, that would also be boring. (...) Basically we want our music and lyrics to be open to interpretation and mean different things to different people, we don't want to be 'unambiguous'. Emotional isolation is certainly an issue, but also the ephemeral, the fragile and decaying, the loneliness and the sadness, but also the hope. "

- Markus Maichel : Interview with Rüdiger Stehle

Keyboardist Markus Maichel and guitarist Markus Berger are almost exclusively named as authors of text and music on both Dante albums.

Discography

Web links

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Homepage of the band Dante
  2. ↑ Booklet of the album The Inner Circle
  3. ^ Page of the band on Massacre Records. ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 2, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.massacre-records.de
  4. ↑ Review at stormbringer.at. Retrieved January 30, 2013
  5. ^ Official statement of the band on the death of Markus Berger.Retrieved on July 11, 2014
  6. ↑ Die Prog-Hope in an interview, July 16, 2010. Accessed January 30, 2013
  7. ↑ Booklets of the albums The Inner Circle and Saturnine