GUNGFLY: "He Held An Axe" Video, Album News.
May 22, 2017
Following last years disbanding of Sweden's much-loved progressive rockers Beardfish, vocalist and driving force Rikard Sjöblom has turned his attention to his solo project Gungfly, and today sees the release of their next album 'On Her Journey To The Sun'.
To celebrate, a brand new animated video for the track 'He Held The Axe' has been launched, and you can watch that here:
"It's been almost a year now since I started working on the songs that would become the new album 'On Her Journey to the Sun' with Rikard Sjöblom's Gungfly. I found myself going more towards prog rock territory than on earlier Gungfly releases but it felt natural and so I just went with it. Some of the songs were written with Beardfish in mind, but when things went the way they did I still wanted to use those songs with Gungfly. I worked hard to make this album the best I possibly could with what I had, and also with the musicians I know and love to play with. Today was actually the first time we rehearsed some of the new songs together - we're getting ready to take this on the road and it will be great!
The artwork was made by Spencer Keala Bowden who also did 'Destined Solitaire' and 'Mammoth' for Beardfish. He's a great artist and I'm happy to be working with him again.
One of the first songs I wrote for the album is a ballad called 'He Held an Axe'. In Sweden there's this old grand (and to some extent lost) tradition among troubadours to write "murder ballads" - beautiful ballads about gruesome killings in dark alleys, think of Jack the Ripper and you get the picture. I wrote this one with a twist. It's about a lonely guy who's accused of murder by the town folk. Did he do it? Nobody knows. The great Peter Callow made an animated video for this song and I'm very proud to be able to present this to you today! It's not for kids though, so please beware! Enjoy.
Rikard Sjöblom 20170516"
'On Her Journey To The Sun' will be available as a special edition 2CD digipak, including a second 'best-of' disc featuring a hand-picked selection of tracks from earlier Gungfly releases. It will also be available as gatefold 2LP + CD & digital download.
The album is available for purchase here:
https://www.insideoutmusicshop.com/
"I recorded what was to become the first album between 2007 - 2008 and it was released in 2009. The name Gungfly is a Swedish word meaning unsecure ground, and it came from a novel I read where it was used to describe that someone didn't have grounds to back up their statements, so I liked it and chose to call the project that!" Rikard continues: "I've always been writing and recording lots of music and when I formed the live band to perform these songs for the first time I got to pick some of my oldest friends to play with and thankfully they wanted to be part of it! Petter and Rasmus Diamant (yes, they're brothers) on drums and bass have always been the backbone foundation in this line-up and sometimes we actually do gigs as the Gungfly trio. Sverker Magnusson has been behind the keys since the start and was recently joined by Martin Borgh too to be able to cover all of the keyboard work on the albums, so sometimes we do three keyboard players on stage at the same time! This is made possible by the fact that guitarist David Zackrisson (Beardfish) is in the band as well. Me then? I do what I've always done; sing, play guitars and a bunch of vintage keyboards (mainly Hammond organ) - and I have lots of fun."
Rikard Sjöblom is perhaps best known as the multi-instrumentalist frontman of Beardfish, who established themselves as one of the most consistently brilliant modern-day progressive rock bands over the course of eight studio albums. In recent years, he has also become known for his work with English progressive collective Big Big Train, playing live with them as well as performing on their 2016 album 'Folklore'. That year also marked the release of his most recent solo album under his own name, 'The Unbendable Sleep'.
GUNGFLY online:
https://www.facebook.com/rikardsjoblom/
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