Artist: AVIAN
Album: FROM THE DEPHTS OF TIME (CD)

Year: 2005
Media type: CD

Guitarist Yan Leviathan, who had been in several local bands over the years, but never anything remotely serious, formed Avian in November of 2002 after being inspired by the weekend-long festival “Progpower III” in Atlanta. After getting home from the festival he began writing songs. Within a couple of weeks, he had managed to come into contact with some influential people in the metal world and began recording the songs in a studio in Phoenix, AZ.
Yan chose the name Avian from his all time favourite book: The Gardens of Rama. In the book, the Avian is a bird like creature that is extremely intelligent and kind-hearted. Avian's debut album is titled "From The Depths Of Time" and is a concept album about "Guardians" out there monitoring us: "Where are they now; they're out there watching!”
To Yan's huge luck, when negotiating studio fees with the owner, Don Salter of The Saltmine, Don had mentioned that he was a good friend of David Ellefson, formerly of Megadeth (now F5). Don set up a meeting between Yan and David and it went very well. Yan gave David a rough demo of a few songs, and a couple of days later, David called and said that he would like to play bass on those songs and also co-produce them. Obviously Yan was very excited and the guys went into the studio the following week, bringing along the drummer of David's F5 project, David Small. Over the next few months, December 2002 - September 2003, they were in and out of the studio recording the songs.
As a matter of fact, David was the one who introduced Yan to Lance King (ex-Balance Of Power, currently Pyramaze) who immediately signed on to join the band and do all of the vocals. In the summer of 2004, Lance introduced Yan to keyboardist Jonah Weingarten (Pyramaze). After a few discussions via email and phone, Jonah flew to Arizona and recorded all of his keyboard tracks in 7 days at Yan's home studio; Yanmonster Studios.
Lance also brought in an old friend and former band mate of his (from their days in Gemini), Roger Moore, to take care of the lead guitars on the album.
In the fall of 2004, members of Avian (Yan and Jonah) relocated to Atlanta, Georgia in order to make it more of a band-effort.
With the album recorded, all that was left to do was the mix (done by Lance at the Nightmare Studios) and mastering, which Tommy Hansen (Helloween, Beyond Twilight, Pretty Maids, Manticora etc) took care of at Jailhouse Studios in Denmark.
The band’s management, Intromental Management, secured deals with Hot Rockin’ in Asia, Nightmare Records in USA and Massacre Records in Europe, and the release date will be set for November 2005.
Musically Avian is a nice blend of old school heavy metal (think Iron Maiden!) and the power metal / true metal of nowadays (such as Hammerfall, Edguy and the likes). Strong song writing, great guitar/keyboard parts and brilliant vocals.
With "From The Depths Of Time" soon to be released, the heavy metal scene for sure hasn't stopped bringing great bands to the world of music - Avian being one of the very best.

TRACKLIST:

01. Through The Past And Into Forever
02. As The World Burns
03. Black Masquerade
04. The Fear
05. Final Frontier
06. Across The Millions
07. Time And Space Part I: City Of Peace
08. Single Blade Of Vengeance
09. Two Sides Collide
10. Blinding Force
11. Time Is All We Need
12. Queen Of The Insane
13. Last Moon
14. The Depths Of Time

LINE-UP:

Yan Leviathan – Guitars
Lance King – Vocals
Jonah Weingarten - Keyboards