Dragonland

Dragonland is a power metal band from Sweden. The group is most notable for basing their first two and the fifth album upon the self-produced The Dragonland Chronicles fantasy saga and for the original symphonic/electronic parts by Elias Holmlid. The band was founded in autumn 1999 by guitarist Nicklas Magnusson and Jonas Heidgert. Soon after Daniel Kvist, Magnus Olin and Christer Pederson joined in. Their first demo was recorded in January 2000. Only 3 months before the recording of their debut album, The Battle of the Ivory Plains started, Kvist decided to leave the band and was soon replaced by Olof Mörck. The album was released on 30 April 2001, and the second album, Holy War, was released on 8 February 2002. Both featured singer Jonas Heidgert on drums. In 2003, Dragonland invited Japanese power metal band Galneryus to play with throughout the Japan tour. Their third album, Starfall was released on 27 October 2004, featuring Jesse Lindskog on drums. Johanna Andersson, Tom S. Englund and Henrik Danhage (Tom and Henrik from Evergrey) provided guest performances on the album, including vocals and guitar solos. Their fourth album, Astronomy, was released on 11 November 2006. Nightrage's Marios Iliopoulos, Amaranthe's Elize Ryd, Cyhra's Jake E and Dead by April's Jimmie Strimell provided guest appearances on this album. Work on a fifth Dragonland album was announced via Blabbermouth on 27 April 2008. In September 2009, Dragonland launched their re-designed Myspace site, together with a high-quality preproduction of "The Shadow of The Mithril Mountains", a song from the fifth album. It took some time before the album was completely ready. Five years after "Astronomy" the band finally released the new album, Under the Grey Banner, on 11 November 2011. Where "Starfall" and "Astronomy" are two separate albums, "Under the Grey Banner" continues the story of their first two albums. On 25 October 2014 it was announced that they would release a reissue of the first album, the Battle of the Ivory Plains, and a remastered version of the second album, Holy War. Both albums have brand new cover artwork, and they were released on 5 December 2014. In the first album, there is also a new song, "a New Dawn", as its bonus track.