THE CODEX: Album Artwork Unveiled

September 28, 2007

Frontiers Records has unveiled the cover artwork from the brand new Mark Boals/Magnus Karlsson collaboration, THE CODEX, due on November 9, 2007.

THE CODEX marks the return to recording — after a three-year hiatus — for Mark Boals, who has previously worked with YNGWIE MALMSTEEN and who was named Best Singer in 1999 by the readers of Japan's Burrn! magazine. Mark also released three successful solo albums and fronted the power-prog metal band RING OF FIRE (which such musical giants as Virgil Donati, Tony MacAlpine and Vitalij Kuprij),with whom he released another three studio albums and one live CD/DVD.

"I am feeling great, better than ever!" says Boals about his comeback. "I was interested in working with Magnus after hearing his work, I love his guitar playing, and of course his songwriting is superb! There are great melodies and I really enjoyed singing on this one. It's really a catchy album, and I have been listening to it a lot, which I rarely do with my work."

Boals' partner in crime on THE CODEX is another Swedish guitar-wizard, Magnus Karlsson, a super-talented and busy guy who is also the mastermind behind STARBREAKER (with Tony Harnell) and the recent very successful ALLEN/LANDE collaboration.

"It's really an honour to work with such a fantastic singer," states Karlsson. "It's very easy to write for Mark because he has this enormous vocal range. I have never heard anything like it! He sings some unbelievably high notes and he does it so beautiful. Musically I wanted to stretch the borders a little more than usual, with almost a power metal style in some songs and very soft parts in others. I use a lot of orchestral arrangement to make it bigger but at the same time I try to leave space for the heaviness in the guitars, drums and bass. I also wanted this to be an album with focus on the vocals and melody as I always do but I added a lot of guitar shredding as well."

Completing the line-up are Linus Abrahamson on bass and Daniel Flores (MIND'S EYE) on drums.

"The Codex" is truly a creative and diverse album which shows a very different side of Karlsson songwriting and gives Boals the chance to showcase some of his most aggressive and heaviest vocals ever. It is probably the heaviest CD where the two artists have ever been involved with, still keeping intact the trademarks of a monster melodic metal album.

"The Codex" track listing:

01. Beyond The Dark
02. Raise Your Hands
03. Toxic Kiss
04. Bring Down The Moon
05. Running Out Of Hate
06. Dream Makers
07. Whole Again
08. Mistress Of Death
09. Mystery
10. Prisoner
11. You Can Have It All
12. Garden Of Grief

Check out audio samples at this location.

Watch video footage of Mark Boals singing "E Lucevan Le Stelle":

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