New Falconer Album has a Title

[MasterOfTheFalcon]

I am one extremely excited Canadian. I can not wait for this album. Hopefully that will be my birthday  present.

[Prab]

Wow, what a cover art!
I agree with Birdie, that it's look feels a bit like the GvG cover. But I like this one more than the GvG art!
That Meininghaus guy is a genius!
Concerning the cover art of the first two albums:
I love the S/T cover. The "Northwind" cover had the return of that "character", still it was the weakest of all the Falconer covers, I feel.
The strongest Falconer covers have been those, with interesting looking individuals/characters on it, like on the s/t album and Sceptre.
I count the ABAT cover among them

[dirge]

Weakest?  Far from it I say!  One of my faves!

[Prab]

Weakest?  Far from it I say!  One of my faves!

It's definitely not a bad album cover, no.
But compared to the other three, or now four, covers it's not that good, I feel.
The strongest is the S/T one, then comes Sceptre. Then I'd place ABAT on 3rd place, then Chapters, then GvG and finally Northwind.
That's my personal ranking concerning Falconer album covers.

I hope Metal Blade will come up with some cool new merchandise and shirt designs for ABAT :D

[Horus-Nikopol]

I feel pretty much the same way, except that I might place Chapters before ABAT.

[tirlith]

Yeah, S/T cover comes first. I think most Falconerfans would agree on that, then it´s kind of hard. I really like the Northwind cover but it dose'nt feel like the typical falconercover. But it´s still not that of as the Rock n' Roll Devil cover. Hehe...

[AngelOfMusic]

The S/T cover is my default Livejournal icon.  Unfortunately, I can't call it my favorite, simply because the proportions on the horse (what little of it you see) are off.  I know, I know, such a minor thing to most people, but I just can't get past that.  I've been around horses since I was 7, so it's kind of hard to turn off the "That horse doesn't look at all right" sensors.

I think my favorite cover is honestly the new one.  It's very well executed, IMO. 

[dirge]

One of a couple of new photos from the myspace page.

[AngelOfMusic]

I used the ones found on Metal Blade's website.

[Prab]

I really like the new promo pictures!
I think it's especially cool to see Mathia were an all black in black outfit. That somehow tells me that he's kind of embraced that "Okay, I'm a metalsinger" attitude Of course in a very positive way. Yeah, outfit is also a - although very very small and not that important - part of it.
I've not seen Falconer live yet (but I'm trying hard as ever!) but I've kind of studied the videos on the internet from Wacken 07 and I have to say, although the voicework of Mathias is simply awesome (he had a cold, right?), he has still to improve a bit on the "stage acting" part. Okay, I must admit, I'd find it very strange if he'd be running around and banging his head off. No, I'd suggest some more gestures with arms and just walking around on the stage, not just keep standing in the middle. And most important of all - just exchange some words with the audience. Just a "The next song is going to be "Lord of the Blacksmiths" and we just love the lyrics to that song!" or something like that :D
Anyways, who am I to suggest anything, I'll forever be a devoted fan (possibly the biggest in Austria :P ) and so hope they're gonna play Wacken 09!

[AngelOfMusic]

I agree, Prab.  Matti looks a bit stiff.  Mathias, do you feel a bit lost without any blocking?   Matti DOES have stage presence - for as long as he's been doing musical theater, I would hope so!  But it's not the stage presence of a metal singer.  And you don't have to head bang and jump around to have a metal stage presence!  Just look at Roy Khan from Kamelot.  He doesn't headbang at all, but he does know how to work the crowd.  Anette Olzon of Nightwish is also very good at getting a crowd worked up, and does not headbang.  Tarja was the same way, though she did headbang from time to time.  So lots of metal singers do not jump around and headbang.

I loveloveLOVE Mathias' vocals, so I'm hoping that with time we'll at least see him lead the crowd in some fist-pumping action.  Falconer has plenty of parts in their songs for a round of fist-pumping, "hey! hey! hey!" and other such activities that metalheads find incredibly entertaining to take part in.

[Prab]

Oh of course Matthias has a great stage presence! I mean, I've not seen any play with him, but still I totally believe it! He is an interesting appearance all together. Absolutely not the typical metal singer and with such a unique voice - you definitely can't mistake him for somebody else!
I'd really love to see the whole Wacken 07 gig recording in high quality, but unfortunately the Wacken team makes those recordings only available to each band and they're not allowed to release that publicly.
Why don't we - the Falconites here in the forum - take a trip to the release party of ABAT in Sweden? :D
Well, although expensive as heck it'd be quite worth a thought, hehe.

[AngelOfMusic]

Sure Prab, I'd do that.  As long as someone pays my way and gives me a place to crash.  All I've got in my pockets is lint.  ProgPower this September is an expensive trip, and all my money is going towards that.

[Prab]

Yeah, I understand, see I was just ranting and ramling about something I really would wish to do
Although I live on the same continent as our beloved band, the trip to Sweden and the stay would also be quite expensive for me.
Sill, I've been giving it some intensive thought, for quite some long time now. I mean, how great would that be? To be there, at a
release party of a Falconer album in Sweden, with the band playing live
Or maybe the guys will one day perform ALL of their albums in the course of festival split up on three or five days :D

Well, if Falconer will play Wacken 09, then I'm so trying to be there! Maybe that'd be worth a trip to Europe for you too, Angel?

[AngelOfMusic]

I REALLY can't afford to go to Europe any time soon.  Even for Wacken.  I'm finishing up school, and once I'm done there, I'll be living with my boyfriend in the Chicago area.  Chicago is stupidly expensive to live in or near, and counselors make crap for pay.  Al doesn't make very good money either.  So any trips to Europe are unlikely to happen unless someone pays our way, or we win a trip.  So even Wacken (my dream) is out of the question.

We're lucky we can go to ProgPower this year.  My only hope of seeing Falconer live (aside from winning the lottery) is that they play ProgPower X.  So here's hoping Glenn offers them a gig next year, and here's hoping they say yes!