Skyfire is a Swedish

melodic death metal Melodic death metal (also referred to as melodeath) is a subgenre of death metal that employs highly melodic guitar riffs, often borrowing from traditional heavy metal (including New Wave of British Heavy Metal). The genre features the heavines ...

band from

Höör Höör (formerly spelled Hör, ) is a locality and the seat of Höör Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden with 7,865 inhabitants in 2010. Name The town was previously known as Hørg (in the 12th century), Hørgh (in the 15th century), and later ...

Skåne County Skåne County ( ), sometimes referred to as Scania County or just Scania in English, is the southernmost Counties of Sweden, county, or , of Sweden, mostly corresponding to the traditional Provinces of Sweden, province of Scania. It borders th ...

. Formed in 1995, its initial lineup comprised Andreas Edlund (guitar), Martin Hanner (bass guitar), Jonas Sjögren (guitar) and Tobias Björk (drums). The band's lineup has significantly changed since its inception. The band has released four albums and five

extended play An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 1 ...

Biography

Skyfire was formed in the town of

, Sweden in 1995 by Andreas Edlund (guitar), Martin Hanner (bass guitar), Jonas Sjögren (guitar) and Tobias Björk (drums). The four were friends since high school and had similar tastes in music. The band recorded two demos: ''Within Reach'' and ''The Final Story''. On the second demo, the vocals were performed by Henrik Wenngren. Skyfire got in touch with band members of Thyrfing who helped them find a record label with Dutch label

Hammerheart Records Hammerheart Records (known as Karmageddon Media between 2004 and 2010) is a Dutch independent record label specializing in death metal, black metal, doom metal and folk metal bands from around the world. The label was founded in 1995 and is current ...

. During two weeks in August 2000, Skyfire recorded their debut album '' Timeless Departure'' in the Abyss Studio. In September 2002, the band recorded their second album '' Mind Revolution'', again in the Abyss Studio with new drummer Joakim Jonsson. ''Mind Revolution'' was released in 2003 and showed the band's style evolving and branching off into different musical genres. The third album ''Spectral'' was recorded at Los Angered and Studio Underground and released on 10 May 2004 by Arise Records. The vocalist Henrik Wenngren left the band and was replaced by Joakim Karlsson. On 7 January 2008, Skyfire announced on their official

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

page that they had signed with a Florida-based label Pivotal Rockordings, for a three-album deal, and the band entered the recording studio to begin recording their fourth untitled album. Mixing was done by

Scar Symmetry Scar Symmetry is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Avesta, formed in 2004. The band has released seven albums, with seven released singles. They are signed to Nuclear Blast Records. History Formation and ''Symmetric in Design'' (2004−2 ...

's Jonas Kjellgren at Black Lounge Studios. On 15 May 2009, Skyfire announced a digital only EP entitled ''

Fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a Shape, geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scale ...

'' for a July 2009 release. The EP is a collection of B-sides recorded between 2004's ''Spectral'' and ''

Esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

''. ''

'' was released on 6 July for digital download. Skyfire's fourth album is titled ''Esoteric'' and was released on 14 September 2009 in the United Kingdom via Pivotal Rockordings. The album was released on 18 September 2009 in the rest of Europe and in North America on 13 October 2009 due to a scheduling issue. The cover art was created by Pär Olofsson, who also made covers for

Brain Drill Brain Drill was an American technical death metal band formed in 2005 from Ben Lomond, California, Ben Lomond, California founded by guitarist and songwriter Dylan Ruskin. They released 2 albums while signed to Metal Blade Records and self-relea ...

Psycroptic Psycroptic are an Australian technical death metal band formed in Hobart, Tasmania in 1999. Mainstay members are the Haley brothers, drummer Dave Haley, Dave and guitarist Joe. Their lead vocalist, Jason Peppiatt, joined in 2004. In 2008 they ...

Spawn of Possession Spawn of Possession was a Swedish technical death metal group, which formed in 1997 in Kalmar. The band have collectively released three studio albums. A fourth album was planned, but in 2017 the band announced their split up. In 2024 four of ...

Persuader Persuader may refer to: * Persuader (band), a Swedish power metal band * Persuader (comics), three DC Comics supervillains * ''Persuader'' (novel), a 2003 thriller novel * Mossberg 500 The Mossberg 500 is a series of pump-action shotguns manu ...

and others. On 4 July 2017, the band launched a

PledgeMusic PledgeMusic was an online direct-to-fan music platform, launched in August 2009. It was started to facilitate musicians looking to pre-sell, market, and distribute projects, such as recordings and concerts. It bore similarities to other artist pa ...

campaign to fund their newest EP ''Liberation in Death''. The campaign was successful, raising the full amount needed in under eight hours. However, the band has been put on hold since then.

Musical style

Skyfire has been described as a variety of genres including

,Blabbermouth review

power metal Power metal is a subgenre of heavy metal combining characteristics of traditional heavy metal with speed metal, often within a symphonic context. Generally, power metal is characterized by a faster, lighter, and more uplifting sound, in co ...

symphonic metal Symphonic metal is a cross-genre style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars ...

neo-classical metal Neoclassical metal is a Music subgenre, subgenre of heavy metal music, heavy metal that is heavily influenced by classical music and usually features very technical playing,Stephan Forté, "Metal néoclassique" in ''Guitarist Magazine Pedago'', ...

progressive metal Progressive metal (often shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven sound of the former with t ...

black metal Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with tr ...

, and

progressive death metal Progressive metal (often shortened to prog metal) is a broad fusion music genre melding heavy metal music, heavy metal and progressive rock, combining the loud "aggression" and amplified electric guitar, guitar-driven sound of the former with t ...

Band members

Current members

* Martin Hanner − bass (2005−present); guitar (1995−2005), keyboards (1995−present) * Joakim Jonsson − drums, guitar (2001−present) *

Johan Reinholdz Johan Reinholdz (born 30 June 1980) is a Swedish guitarist known for his work with the progressive metal band Andromeda (Swedish band), Andromeda, and melodic death metal bands Dark Tranquillity, NonExist and Skyfire (band), Skyfire. He compose ...

− guitar (2005−present) * Joakim Karlsson − vocals (2007−present)

Past members

* Andreas Edlund − guitar, keyboards (1995−2015) * Tobias Björk − drums (1995−2001) * Jonas Sjögren − bass (1995−2005) * Henrik Wenngren − vocals (1998−2007)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums

* '' Timeless Departure'' (2001) * '' Mind Revolution'' (2003) * '' Spectral'' (2004) * ''

'' (2009)

Demos and EPs

* ''Within Reach'' (1998) * ''The Final Story'' (2000) * ''Haunted by Shadows'' (2003) * ''Fractal'' (2009) * ''Liberation in Death'' (2017)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Skyfire Swedish symphonic metal musical groups Swedish melodic death metal musical groups Musical groups established in 1995 Musical groups from Skåne County Höör