Angel Heart

Angel Heart was formed in the year of 1999, becoming Korea's first ever major visual rock band, inspired by the early visual kei scene of Japan. Consisting of four members at the time, Sopia [currently named Kaiser], Serra, Ruiza, and Jimmy spearheaded a revolution in the music industry by introducing their own unique sound and lending a hand in raising the popularity of rock music in Korea. On March 8th of 2000, Angel Heart's first mini album, Poem of Angel was released, which included six tracks excluding a filmed bonus, two music videos and two instrumental tracks. The featured songs, Scarlet Eyes and Desire Love received the most attention from the mini-album, but the band itself was not gaining enough attention to be publicly recognized on a wide scale. Mention of them was swiftly diminishing over the next couple of years, and in 2001, Serra, Jimmy and Ruiza left Angel Heart due to military service and school-related issues, leaving vocalist Sopia by himself. Afterwards, Angel Heart would undergo a prolonged hiatus without the slightest mention of future activity or even a new reformation of the band. Finally, three years later in 2004, Sopia discarded his name for a new one, Kaiser, and revived Angel Heart with five new members-- Kaero, Dan, Kuma, Jiruji, and Horyong. With this, their second album, Rebirth, was released under the Kaiser Empire label on the 23rd of June, bearing fourteen complete tracks without any additional video footage or music videos. Additionally, Rebirth came out in two different types; Part 1 [white release] and Part 2 [black release]. The significance of the separate titles lies in two tracks of the fourteen on each album. The white release features two songs of a sweeter, lighter melody, Paradise and Forenoon, while it's counterpart, the black release, bears Spilled Blood and Fade Heart; both of a much more dark nature. Rebirth proved far more successful than Poem of Angel, and allowed Angel Heart to engage in activity across the country once more as the band was in high demand after such improvement and absence from the public stage. Shotgun, the featured track of both versions of Rebirth received a lot of positive responses and was performed in the majority of Angel Heart's concerts after the music video was also embraced. Since then, mention of Angel Heart had spread to countries outside of Korea, and distribution of the albums were added to international online media stores such as yesasia.com, one of the most widely used net shops for asian and western media. Although information of the band remains very scarce [as the rock music in Korea is not quite as vast as pop, ballad or R&B] the availability of their work through these stores along with the devotion of their worldwide fans still keeps their name alive to this day.