Assailant

[uh-sey-luhnt]

Assailant is a Swedish Power metal band formed in 2004 and currently on the label Dockyard 1. Their debut album Nemesis Within was released in May 2006.

The Sound

According to lead guitarist Oskar Norberg Assailant's style is "A blend of modern, melodic thrash and old school heavy metal with lots of interesting harmonies." and Metalfrontiers, an online web magazine describes it as "Power metal+thrash riffs+a very good singer with a unique voice+keyboards=Assailant. I know that many of you hate maths but this is the best way to describe Assailant�s music.". Furthermore Morrigan's Pit says "It's hard to describe the band's music as they blend so many different styles together....it's aggressive yet melodic, contains a little bit of everything..." in a live review of Demons of the Opera.

Biography

Oskar Norberg and Joakim Jonsson started playing together around 1996-1998. In 1999 their band took the name Sacra Via, and played music greatly influenced by Dream Theater. The original line-up of Sacra Via is unknown, the drummer's name was Lars, and the keyboardist's name was Fredrik. In 2000 Fredrik quit the band and Peder Sandström took his place behind the Keyboard. They did not have a vocalist, but soon produced an instrumental demo (unknown title). In 2001 Lars was replaced by new drummer, Patrik Larsson, an old friend of Peder Sandström, and the band decided changed its name to Ecliptica. They produced some songs, recorded demos and soon were able to find vocalist Marcus Granberg. With a full line-up they could now do more live performances. After some time they felt they needed a more full sound on stage and, in 2003, recruited Kristofer Eriksson, childhood friend of Patrik and Peder, on guitars.

In early 2004 Marcus Granberg left the band for a job in Spain and around that time Kristofer moved to stockholm to study music. At this time the band seemed to disappear for a while, but apparently just to come back stronger then ever. During the summer of 2004 they recruited vocalist Peder Sundqvist (Dead street journal, former Lesra) and later on Marcus Sundbom (Dead street journal, Diaspora), and also changed their sound totally. The new sound was more raw and aggressive, reminiscent of Evergrey and the "Gothenburg sound" (In flames)), and they felt it was time for a change of name again. The band Assailant had erupted from the remains of Ecliptica but with very little similarities in sound.

In 2005 Assailant produced a demo record named Mental State, consisting of 8 songs. This record was however only for promotion, record companies and reviews - not for sale or free to download. In April/May they played at Demons of the Opera in Umeå, not with the philharmonic orchestra though, but on the "Black Box" stage. The German label Dockyard 1 quickly took the bait, and signed with the band around August/September 2005. Emil Norberg (Persuader), the brother of Oskar, might have been the one hooking them up with Dockyard since Persuader already had a contract with that company. Another brother of Oskar is Nils Norberg, guitarist in Nocturnal Rites. The band had a lot of gigs between this time and May 2006 when their debut album Nemesis Within was released. Both Nils and Emil made small guest performances on Nemesis Within, a solo part featuring all three brothers.

Assailant's second album, Wicked Dream, will be released March 21, 2008. A music video is also on the way; "Between Christmas and New Years we are going to record a video at Village road film with Ove Lingvall at the helm."