Artist: ALTARIA
Album: DIVINE INVITATION (CD)

Year: 2007
Media type: CD

ALTARIA are back! After a successful 2006 with amazing reactions on the most recent studio album “The Fallen Empire” and great live shows with DORO, SONATA ARCTICA and LORDI plus a headliner tour in Finland, the fan request for the sold out releases of the band’s first two albums “Invitation” and “Divinity” became bigger an bigger.

Singer Taage Laiho (KILPI) decided to leave ALTARIA at the end of 2006 to concentrate on his work with aforementioned band. While looking for a new man on the mic, which later was found with fantastic shouter Marco Luponero (ex TERRORWHEEL), the idea came up to make the best songs from these two albums available again and, at the same point of time, to introduce Luponero to the fans with two new songs. The result is “Divine Invitation”, a mid-price release made for fans! Besides the material mentioned above, “Divine Invitation” contains seven further bonus tracks taken from the band’s sought after demos “Sleeping Visions” and “Feed The Fire”. Detailed informations about line-up’s, including performances by guitarists Jani Liimatainen (SONATA ARCTICA) as well as Emppu Vuorinen (NIGHTWISH; BROTHER FIRETRIBE), and infos about the origin of all songs can be found below. This compilation was produced by ALTARIA and mastered by Esa Orjatsalo (ex DREAMTALE) and is just the beginning for ALTARIA in 2007 – the band currently is in the studio to record the next album which is due for a release later this year!

Track information:
1-5 from the album "Invitation" (2003) with line-up: Jouni Nikula (v, Requiem), Emppu Vuorinen (g., Nightwish, Brother Firetribe), Jani Liimatainen (g., Sonata Arctica), Marko Pukkila (b.) & Tony Smedjebacka (d.)
6-10 from "Divinity" (2004) with Taage Laiho (v, Kilpi), Jani Liimatainen (g., Sonata Arctica), Marko Pukkila (b.) & Tony Smedjebacka (d.)
11 & 12 unreleased, new songs with the current line-up incl. new singer Marco Luponero (ex Terrorwheel)
13-15 from the first demo "Sleeping Visions" (2001) with line-up: Tony Smedjebacka on drums, Marko Pukkila on bass, Jani Liimatainen on guitar and Johan Mattjus on vocals
16-19 from the demo "Feed The Fire" (2002) with Tony Smedjebacka on drums, Marko Pukkila on bass, Jani Liimatainen on guitar and Jouni Nikula on vocals

TRACKLIST:

1. Fire & Ice, 2. Unchain The Rain, 3. Darkened Highlight, 4. History Of Times To Come, 5. Try To Remember, 6. Unicorn, 7. Prophet Of Pestilence, 8. Ravenwing, 9. Innocent, 10. Final Warning, 11. Keeper Of Mystique, 12. Ball & Chain

Bonus trax: 13. Fire & Ice (Demo 2001), 14. Innocent (Demo 2001),15. Kingdom Of The Night (Demo 2001), 16. Unicorn (Demo 2002), 17. History Of Times To Come (Demo 2002), 18. Immortal Disorder (Demo 2002), 19. Emerald Eye (Demo 2002)

LINE-UP:

Marco Luponero – vocals
Marko Pukkila – bass
Tony Smedjebacka – drums
J-P Alanen – guitars
Petri Aho - guitars