Discography - News/Reviews

BIRTH OF THE WIZARD (1993-1994)

Gandalf was founded in Helsinki by Nalle Österman in the summer of 1993, when he sat down for a chat in a pub with Mika "Gas Lipstick" Karppinen. Gas (Dementia, Kyyria and HIM) promised to help out on a demo. Also joining the project were Timo Nyberg (Ladyhawke) on guitar and Jari Hurskainen on vocals, both of them being old friends to Nalle. After getting the guys together, Gandalf rehearsed some material written by Nalle for about a month. With Jari singing, Timo and Nalle playing the guitars and Kaasu playing the drums as well as some bass tracks along with Timo, they recorded their debut demo "Will Life Ever End?" in August 1993. The demo suffers from a bad sound quality but the sheer energy and brutality of the band is already evident at this time. Intense and fast drumming combined with screaming guitars and deep growling vocals from Jari are the trademarks of the demo. Nalle reckons that the early Gandalf stuff was much in the vein of such bands as Nihilist, Carnage, Grave and Dismember from Sweden. Some time after the recording of the demo a fellow named Niku joined on a session basis on bass.

After "Will Life Ever End?", Gas parted company with Gandalf because Kyyria had started to take too much of his time. Also Niku left the Gandalf camp. The period between November '93 and June '94 was not a creative time for Gandalf. This was because Nalle and Jari had to join the Finnish Army and serve their time as everybody else in this freezing country. At this point Nalle started to consider the possibility of playing drums. After this decision was made only one problem remained, where would they find members for a full line-up? Adverts were placed in music magazines and in some music shops and that was the way how Tommi Launonen got in touch with Gandalf. Tommi joined on a session basis on bass because he was already a member of a band called Nomicon, which he considered his first priority. A second guitarist was found in Santtu Sierilä. Santtu had played with Gas in Dementia so the style suited him like a fist in the face.

With this new line-up (Hurskainen/Nyberg/Sierilä/Launonen/Österman) Gandalf recorded their second demo in December 1994 simply entitled "Demo 2 '94". This demo makes much more justice to the band because of the better production. For the first time Timo was credited for three songs, co-written with Nalle. The demo shows much better the diversity of the band's material with such songs as "Morning Sun" and "Carry The Torch" which tend to lean more towards traditional heavy metal as we know it. Also the growling vocals are much more up front in the mix which is a good thing. Gandalf had now proved that they were a force to be reckoned with and that they would stay on the Finnish metal scene for years to come even if they got a recording contract or not.

THE CRADLE WILL ROCK (1995-1997)

Enter 1995 and Gandalf finally finds a permanent member to bash the bass. The man in question was Kirka Sainio, formerly of Airdash. Together with such bands as Stone and Tarot, Airdash belonged to something that one could call "The First Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal" in the latter years of the 1980's. These bands caused somewhat of a boom in Finland when they first burst onto the scene. Some serious global goals where set by many of the bands, some where reached but on the whole no really big international breakthroughs happened... and the fault was by no way in the music! So, Gandalf gained some serious experience when Kirka joined and at the end of the year the new line-up (Hurskainen/Nyberg/Sierilä/Sainio/Österman) presented the third demo entitled "The Cradle".

Now, this is one helluva demo! To start with, the sound on the demo is really good. A dynamic production where every aspect of the band seems to be in balance. The title track "The Cradle" pays musically fine tribute to the glory days of British heavy metal. A song with true hit potential if you catch the drift. The demo also features fast and furious material (as always when it comes to Gandalf) for example the track "Dark Memories" on which Santtu shears co-writing credits for the first time with Timo and Nalle. This track can not be the easiest to play, especially live, and it sure sounds as if Gandalf was taking the fast lane on the highway overtaking Slayer! Furthermore, we have the awesome "Eagles' Nest" which is pure evidence of what the creative minds of Nalle and Timo could achieve when they worked towards a common goal. "The Cradle" was widely send out to record companies and magazines around the globe. It got some really good reviews and record companies were beginning to show some interest in the band. Some of the rave reviews can be found in magazines like Terrorizer (UK) and More Than Music (USA). It seems that "The Cradle" was the demo that made the name Gandalf stick in the minds of the international press and pave the way for more attention along the road.

In 1996 Gandalf played various gigs mostly in Helsinki, in fact they must have played more gigs this year than altogether in the previous years. The increasing amount of gigs was a good thing for the band because every time they seemed to be growing a little bit tighter than before. One of the biggest gigs of 1996 for Gandalf was the support slot at the "Mother Of All Massacres III" festival which Dark Tranquillity headlined. The buzz that "The Cradle" had created in the previous year made various record labels contact the band, to name a few: Metal Blade (USA), Progressive Rock (Denmark) and Spinefarm (Finland). Some of the foreign labels wanted additional fresh material and this was the reason why the band humbly entered the MD-studio to record a promo demo entitled "Snakebite" in August 1996. Once again hiring the production talents of producer Hiili Hiilesmaa (HIM, Apocalyptica, Sentenced) they worked overtime laying down five tracks to tape during a weekend. In the end only three made it to the final distributed demo. Soundwise "Snakebite" follows in the footsteps of "The Cradle", the material is strong and maybe a little bit maturer than on the predecessor. What we have here is three equally strong tracks, the haunting "The Dragon", the medieval "Forlorn" and the press favourite "Marionette". The two leftover tracks which went under the working titles of "Live To Suffer" and "No Guilt" have a certain rawness and flavour to them that make the assult even heavier. As it was, "Snakebite" put all the speculations to an end about the question if the band would be signed or not, but little did they know about the troubles to come...

As 1997 loomed around the corner the band was filled with promise and studio time was booked for March. They had decided on the offer from Danish label Progressive Rock. January and February was spent in rehearsal for the upcoming studio session. However, one live performance was to be witnessed when Gandalf supported Sentenced at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki on their "Down"-tour of Finland. Well, once again back to the warm caress of the MD-studio, but this time no more demos, a whole studio album was to be recorded in two weeks. A familiar setting, producer Hiili behind the mixing desk and the guys taking turns, recording their various parts. Speaking to the band around this time it seemed that they had some problems in finding "that sound" they were looking for. The album was named "Live to Suffer" and what an appropriate title that proved to be because it seemed that the album was jinxed from the start to finish.

In April, the band went to supervise the mixing of the album at Finnvox-studios. The mixing took about a week to do. Around this time the soup was stirred once again when the band got a more lucrative offer from Austrian Dark Matter Records. Having not yet signed their names to the Danish deal the band opted for the Austrian. The work started with the Austrian label to get the album finished and packaged and out on the market. When the band got the test pressings of the album, the result was really disappointing and they had heavy second thoughts about releasing the album. A decision was made to put the album back to August/September. Meanwhile the band travelled into the dark woods of Finland to play the Nummirock festival in June which Megadeth headlined. They got a warm response and vowed to return again next year. It seemed that the only thing that was missing was a proper album to promote. Well, as always when the shit gets stirred it gets stirred a lot. The next hassle came when the other members of the band felt that things were not working out as they should with rhythm guitarist Santtu Sierilä. Therefore the band and Santtu parted company in July.

The communication between Gandalf and their record company seemed to be getting worse and worse. The record company didn't like the fact that the band was lacking a second guitarist and the band felt that they didn't want to release a second rate debut album. There was even talk about that the band would fly to Austria to re-record the album but this never happened. To make things even more interesting enter: Earache. Pioneer metal label Earache had become very interested and wanted to sign the band for a new sub-label Wicked World, which they were starting. So, what followed was a period of deep frustration and legal hassle. Because they were still searching for a second guitarist, Corporal Punishment guitar maestro Nirri Niiranen (Airdash, Stone) helped the band out on a session basis at some gigs. It took until November before the table was cleared and the band could proceed to negotiate a deal with Earache. Now, "Live To Suffer" was definitely scrapped. This was the most intelligent decision the band did during this period of dark chaos. Around the same time they announced that they had found a new guitarist in Sami Vauhkonen. Sami played in a band called Coarse, nowadays known as Lullacry, which drummer Nalle also bashed the drums for. They seemed happy with the new fellow on the guitar and the forthcoming contract with Earache.

The time waiting for things to clear was not wasted because new songs were written with such titles as: "Stronger Than Hell", "End Of Time" and "Fade Away", but more about these later. The first work that the band would undertake for Earache was to record one exclusive track for a forthcoming compilation, which would feature such names as Emperor, Dimmu Borgir, Thy Serpent and The Haunted among others. Together with studio-wizard Mikko Karmila the band entered studio 303 in Helsinki on December 19th to record the track "Carry The Torch". This song was first put to tape on "Demo 2" way back in 1994. They finished the track in eighteen hours and Mr Karmila made sure that this time nothing would go wrong. The guys were overvelmed with the end result and felt that this was the best recording they had ever done, and it was, uptil then...

THE WIZARD STRIKES BACK (1998-2000)

Over to 1998. The guys now had one foot in the Earache office and the next step would be to land firmly with both feet in the Earache camp. The record company showed green light for the recording of the debut album and the pre-production was done over a short space of time in January-February. This time the happy fellows decided to get away from the megalopolis that is Helsinki and it's hectic way of life. The place of choice was Lappeenranta's Astia-studio which is the homecave of producer Anssi Kippo. Among Mr Kippo's production work we have the highly acclaimed Children of Bodom debut "Something Wild". Spending the end of March and early April close to the Russian border, the new line-up put various tracks down to tape and experimented with the songs a little bit more than before. Finally ten tracks were chosen for the album. Including four old favourites: "The Cradle", "Marionette", "Dark Memories" and "Forlorn" with slightly altered arrangements. Six new songs, never officially released before, these were: "End Of Time", "The Price Of My Deeds", "Eternal Fire", "Stronger Than Hell" and the extremely strong and standout newbies "Fade Away" and "Never Again".

In May all the details of the contract were sorted out and Gandalf finally signed with the new Earache sub-label Wicked World. Once again before anything would be released the band played Nummirock for the second time. This time such big names as Slayer and Pantera was to be found on the bill. The first release on the Wicked World label was the "Statements Of Intent" compilation which hit the shops in August. Gandalf's "Carry The Torch '98" got a very, very nice response and was astonishingly voted as the best track on the CD in metal magazine Kerrang!

The band's own debut was dubbed "Deadly Fairytales" and was scheduled for an October release. "Deadly Fairytales" was indeed a very strong debut. The production of Mr Kippo deserves a special mention here. Hats off people! Well, anyway, it seems that he had inspired the band in their experiments with the sound better than any producer before. The band is in balance and the whole "package" is very well kept together from start to finish. Timo and Sami work out the guitar leads in perfect co-operation, which gave the band a new strong twin lead guitar attack. Nalle and sound professor Kirka also provide a strong backbone to the whole war assemble. The album got very good reviews around the globe, for example Kerrang! gave it 4 out of 5 possible. In November the band celebrated the achievements of the new album by throwing a record release party at the Tavastia Klubi in Helsinki. However, all was not that rosy around the time of the album release. The Finnish distributor didn’t promote the album at all which resulted in a situation where it was very hard to get hold of it in Finland. This of course resulted in very poor sales figures. Internationally things seemed to be a little better. The album was even released in Japan with "Carry The Torch’98" as a bonus track.

As the year changed into 1999, the album got its American release when Earache signed a new distribution deal for their products in the USA. Gandalf was noted in various reader’s polls for 1998 which started to surface at the beginning of the year. The various positions where usually in the top 20, which meant that the record buying public had started to take notice. The track "Eternal Fire" was included on the Metalliliitto 1999 compilation album which was released in August only in Finland. The band played various gigs, among others the Tavastia Klubi a couple of times, Tuska Metal Festival and Lepakko, all part of the promotion for "Deadly Fairytales". There where rumors about a possible video shoot and tours abroad, but none of these happened during the year. Towards the end of the year the band started the writing and rehearsals for the next studio album. But before the sessions for a new album could begin the band had to sort out (once again) some problems with their line-up. Sami had decided to concentrate all his energy on Lullacry, which in many ways had always been his first priority. This had caused some tensions between him and Nalle for some time already and the solution was found when Sami and Gandalf went their separate ways. Also Kirka had long aspired to make a career as a professional sound engineer, and only perform as a session musician in various projects. Therefore he also decided leave the band and pursue these other activities. He is nowadays the bass player for LAB.

The new millennium started with an announcement about the current state of affairs in the Gandalf camp. The working title for the album was "Rock Hell". The new second guitarist was Toni Näykki (Twilight Opera) and the bass would be played by Kimmo Aroluoma (Jimsonweed). For the first time in many a moon the band was in a situation where they could build the foundation of the next album on new material. Only two old songs were re-arranged for the album, namely: "Morning Sun" and "The Dragon". Most of the album was written by Nalle but also Timo and Toni made some strong contributions by writing the music to a couple of tracks. The band entered the Seawolf Studios in Helsinki with producer Hannu Leidén in February 2000. This time the the band focused a lot on getting a "rock" sound to blend with the melodic death groove that had become a trademark sound for the band. Many hours of work was put down on the vocals and backing vocal support was provided by Marco Hietala (Tarot, Sinergy, Nightwish) and Peter James Goodman (Conquest).

During the recording of the album the band parted ways with Toni and hence the situation was once again a too familiar setting: no second guitarist! The band solved this problem by inviting some friends to play guitar on the album. Titus Hjelm (Thunderstone) and J.Mezola made their contributions by playing lead guitar on some of the tracks on the album. The sessions dragged on a bit and where finalised during July 2000. To make things worse, Wicked World postponed the release of the album with half a year. Nevertheless, the band got to shoot a video for the track "Morning Sun". This one would be included on an Earache compilation DVD, before the album’s actual release. The video was shot on location in Viaborg, Helsinki and directed by Antti Lahtinen.

SEE YOU IN ROCK HELL (2001-2002)

The finished album "Rock Hell" was released in January of 2001. It received somewhat mixed reviews. Some felt this new "rockier" direction suited the band while others didn’t understand it at all. The album is very varied and the new songs range from mellow rockers to more intense trashier numbers. The band was maybe most experimental on such tracks as "Human Value Zero", "Geysir" and "Live To Suffer".

The touring that followed later in the same year secured Harri Hytönen (Dragon Sun) as the new second guitarist. Gandalf supported The Haunted in Finland in May before embarking on a British tour as support to Katatonia in the summer. Also joining the tour was Akercocke. The last show Gandalf ever played was at the Tuska Metal Festival in July 2001 in Helsinki.

Towards the end of the year 2001 the relationships between the band members seemed to be deteriorating at an alarming speed. There was some work done on some new songs, mainly by Nalle, but the situation seemed to just get worse. The state of affairs didn’t improve during the first half of the new year. Hence, in late April 2002, Nalle Österman announced that he had disbanded Gandalf since he saw no future for the band anymore. May the wizard rest in peace.

In Helsinki, November 2003
Kriba Gottberg