Beseech
A Swedish gothic rock-oriented metal band, Beseech started out in Borås (near Gothenburg) in 1992, and after creating a demo, they became involved with the underground scene. In 1995, they recorded their first album, ...from a bleeding heart, but due to the label having financial problems, it was not released until 1998, under the label of Metal Blade. In mid-2000, they released their second album, Black Emotions, and from that point, their career took off. The next albums, Souls Highway (2002) and Drama (2004) showed that the line-up changes affected the music in a way that many liked and others criticized. In 2005, they released Sunless Days.
In autumn of 2006, the band announced that Beseech would be put to rest for good: "We have grown apart from each other as persons and we have different views of how we want Beseech to work as a band."
In 2007, Beseech's Web site announced that their members had formed two new bands: The Mary Major, which contains 6 out of the 7 band members, and Those We Don't Speak Of, with the remaining band member.
A NEW BEGINNING (2014-)
This year 2013, is the ten years anniversary when the “old” era of Beseech was put to rest. Klas Bohlin, one of the founding members of Beseech decides to leave the band to focus on other musical challenges. Still good friends through the years, Klas Bohlin and Robert Vintervind the original composers in Beseech started to talk about playing music together in some way. After some successful jams their new material sounded more Beseech than ever, back to its roots with delivering the same characteristic melancholic feeling, but in a new mature way. Shortly after, Manne Engström (guitar) re-joined the band and Beseech entered the “classic Beseech studio”, StudioMega/Fascination Street during the fall of 2012 to figure out the new direction of the band.
DEVELOPING THE GOTHIC SOUND (1992-1995)
The history of Beseech begins in 1992, in the band´s hometown of Borås (near Gothenburg), Sweden. Klas Bohlin (guitar), Jörgen Sjöberg (vocals) and Morgan Gredåker (drums), three hungry teenagers with ambitions, founded a band called Beseech. In November 1992 their first demo “A lesser kind of evil” was recorded, which also became an introduction of the band to the Swedish underground scene. Soon thereafter some members left and Robert Vintervind (guitar) and Andreas Wiik (bass) joined the band. From that day Klas and Robert started to develop a special co-writing relation, which became a solid ground in the development of Beseech’s gothic sound. In 1994 Beseech’s second demo “Last Chapter” was released. At that time the band had become more ambitious and deeply involved in the underground scene, participating in various compilation CD´s, making lots of interviews and received many positive reviews in fanzines worldwide. Later on Anna Andersson (vocals & keyboard), with a voice like an angel joined the band. At this point of time, not so many bands had yet started to experiment with harmonies for both male and female vocals. In 1995 Beseech began to hang out at StudioMega with the producer Christian Silver, who became to be an important person close to the band for many years. Together they developed the Beseech sound into a quite unique semi-acoustic doom/progressive format, using classical instruments such as cello, violin, flute and piano. After a successful recording session, Beseech came up with their success demo “Tears”, which led to a publishing contract with Swedish Misty Music, but most important, lots and lots of attention in the underground scene worldwide. With several offers from record labels and bookings outside Sweden, the future for Beseech looked bright. Another band who also happened to be at StudioMega from time to time, was Fatal Embrace featuring Manne Engström (guitar), who came to play an important role in the future for Beseech.
FROM A BLEEDING HEART (1996-1999)
In 1996 Beseech signed their first record deal with We Bite/Corrosion Records, runned by the editor Frank Schenk at Chaos Mag. Soon after, Beseech entered StudioMega to record their debut album “…from a bleeding heart”. Unfortunately, the label suffered a major economic setback and was unable to release the album. Not until 1998, after Beseech was released from its contract with We Bite/Corrosion Records and secured a deal with Metalblade, did “from a bleeding heart” see the light of day. During these two years some necessary changes in the lineup were made and Mikael Back (keyboards) and Daniel Elofsson (bass) joined the band, but sadly Anna Andersson decided to leave the band to focus on her solo carrier.
BLACK EMOTIONS & THE TOUR (2000-2001)
In 1999, Beseech signed a worldwide record deal with Pavement Music and Klas, Jörgen and Robert began to write songs for their 2nd album “Black emotions”. This time the music took a different direction from the doom/progressive-oriented sound found on the first album. Beseech experimented with going deeper into the gothic style and the vocals got more clean, but with the same atmosphere and spirit of Beseech. Two new members joining the band during the writing process was Jonas Strömberg (drums) and Lotta Höglin (vocals). With Lotta in the band we found the perfect match for backing up Jörgen’s powerful voice. “Black Emotions” was released in mid-2000 and the response was tremendous – receiving outstanding reviews and much airtime. Beseech promoted the album by joining forces with Theatre of Tragedy and Lacuna Coil during their 2001 European tour. Shortly after the tour, Jörgen Sjöberg (vocals) got burned out, and was forced to leave the band and Beseech braced for a new era. Due to the unstable economic outlook of Pavement Music, Beseech parted ways with the label in 2001. By then, the latest addition to the Beseech lineup, Erik Molarin (vocals), was in place. His majestic voice complimented Lotta Höglin’s beautiful vocal lines perfectly.
MOVIE SOUNDTRACK (2002)
In 2002, a Canadian film company, Brimstone Productions, approached Beseech to feature three songs from the “Black Emotions” album (Manmade Dreams, Neon Ocean and Lunar Eclipse) on the soundtrack (with bands such as Entombed) to the B horror movie “Alien Agenda 5 – Alien Conspiracy”. The movie was released in 2002.
SOULS HIGHWAY AND NAPALM RECORDS (2002)
In 2001 Beseech presented their new material for the record labels, and new offers from labels started to come in. Beseech finally decided to sign a worldwide record deal with Napalm Records. Later on the writing process for “Souls Highway” began. Another important co-writer for this album was Mikael Back (keyboard). Souls Highway was released in 2002 and received euphoric raves by critics and fans worldwide. By the end of 2002 a music video for the track “Between the lines” was released via the Internet and downloaded by hundreds of thousands all over the world. In 2003, long time member and songwriter Klas Bohlin decided to leave the band, to continue with his late 60′s sounding and psychedelic experiment Depressive Art. Also for this band Klas decided to make the recordings at StudioMega, but this time working with a new young talented guy, Johan Örnborg (bass) behind the mixing controls, whom today is also a member of Beseech.
DRAMA (2004)
“Drama” reflects life, human thoughts and the darker side of mind. This fourth release in many ways was a natural follow-up to “Souls Highway” , but without Klas in the band, a new creative process developed and the new approach affected the music on “Drama” – the compositions became more experimental, groovier, presented a heavier sound, and both music and lyrics reflected more attitude than ever before. On “Drama” Manne Engström was part of the creative process for the first time and is listed as a co-producer on the album. With this album the band took the touring to another level and played many festivals and gigs around Europe.
SUNLESS DAYS (2005)
This album was another step towards an even more heavy and modern style of metal/rock music, but still with the great variations in the songs. Beseech did about a year and a half of touring on Sunless Days before they decided to put the band to rest because of internal band issues. Robert needed a break from the music, and the other members that hadn’t gotten so much creative attention in Beseech started writing music for their new band Mary Major.
MORE BESEECH THAN EVER
It just happened… After years of silence, the creators of the Beseech sound, Robert and Klas started writing material for their next music project. Somehow the results turned out to sound more Beseech than ever, like a continuation to the highly critically acclaimed album Souls Highway, but with a more vintage oriented twist. Due to the new sound it was also necessary with some lineup changes. The first guy to re-join the Beseech was Manne Engström (guitar) that besides creative guitar playing contributes with both engineering and producing. The new members are; Johan Örnborg (bass), producer/mixer at Fascination Street Studios. Angelina Sahlgren Söder (vocals) with experience from both theatre and musicals. Håkan Carlsson (drums), is rounding up the new lineup with a more intense drum playing. The most important change was to make space for the third generation of singers. With Klas and Angelina behind the microphones Beseech has developed a more country influenced way of singing with more space for harmony vocals.
Current line-up:
Klas Bohlin - Male Vocals
Angelina Sahlgren Söder - Female Vocals
Robert Vintervind - Guitars, Programming
Johan Örnborg - Bass
Mikael Back - Keyboards
Håkan Carlsson - Drums
Manne Engsttröm - Guitars (Cemetary 1213, Fatal Embrace, Sundown) Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
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