Withering Surface

Formed in October 1994, Withering Surface began to write their first demo. It wasn't until 1995 that the band actually entered a studio to record it. Their first demo was titled 'Unique' and was recorded in Take-One Studios and saw the light of day in September. In December, after many interviews and reviews of this demo, it was chosen as 'The best metal demo of 95' on National Danish Radio. In 1996 the band was featured on the 'Extremity Rising' compilation CD (released by Serious Entertainment) and shortly after that the band sign a deal for two albums with Euphonious Records/Voices Of Wonder, after having compared offers from other labels. In September and October of that year, Withering Surface recorded their debut album 'Scarlet Silhouettes' in the Swedish Studio Fredman with producer Fredrik Nordström (known for his work with At The Gates, In Flames, Dark Tranquility etc.). Jesper Strömblad (In Flames) made a guest appearance on this CD. In March, 'Scarlet Silhouettes' was released world wide and gained great response. The international press praises Withering Surface and interviews are done with several big magazines like Terrorizer (UK), Metalized (DK) & Metal Invader (Greece). In the summer 'Scarlet Silhouettes' is selected to be licensed to the Japanese market and the band enters Borsing Studio in Denmark in August to record a bonus track for the Japanese version of 'Scarlet Silhouettes'. In April Withering Surface entered Studio Fredman with the assistance of Fredrik Nordström and Anders Fridén (In Flames). This resulted with 10 new songs, being much more melodic, technical and atmospheric and less brutal, fast and aggressive. The title of the album is 'The Nude Ballet'. The album got mastered at Sweet Silence Studios (Metallica, Morbid Angel etc.) in May 1998. After some line-up trouble and trouble at the record company 'The Nude Ballet' Is finally released in Denmark in early December. Due to the incredible response about it, 'The Nude Ballet' was nominated for a Danish Hard Rock Grammy along with two other Danish bands. Withering Surface didnt win but did get very drunk at the Grammy party. In 2000, Withering Surface had to find another guitarist after the departure of Marcel Lech which lead to the poor gigging situation of only one concert in Copenhagen with session guitarist, Jacob Zimmermann. On top of that, they also had to find themselves a new label. This didnt stop them writing new material, and in September, with only one guitarist, they entered Berno Studio (The Haunted, Deranged, The Quill) in Malmo to record a promo exclusively for landing a new deal. They called in an old friend to help do lead on a couple of songs and he ended up joining the band as a full time member. Within the first 6 months of 2001 Withering Surface were still busy writing songs the the new album, after receiving lots of offers from various labels worldwide, they settled with the small England based label Copro Records and signed a three album deal. Subsequently the recording of 'Walking On Phantom Ice' began in the Berno Studio. After the release of 'Walking On Phantom Ice' they toured around Denmark for the first few months of 2002 and after they wanted to go out on another tour around the rest of Europe, but they couldn't find the right bands to tour with. Copro were also working hard on getting them on a tour and finally it happened. Withering Surface got placed on a UK tour with Opeth and Arch Enemy. Withering Surface started 2003 off with saying goodbye to both Morten and Nikolaj. Morten was moving to the other end of the country and Nikolaj and the rest of the band had gone separate ways on several issues. Shortly after they hooked up with Lukas Meier from Sacrificial, he was mainly there to help out on the forthcoming tour in Germany. Before the tour, Withering Surface released 'Ichor' which contained previously unreleased and limited released material along with a live track from the Roskilde Festival in 1999 limited to 1.000 copies and sold out pretty quickly. As Withering Surface were getting ready to record the new album, they were told by Copro Records to tell us that they were financially incapable of meeting the economical demands for the recording. They made the best of it by parting ways with them and carried on writing the new material. They entered Tue Madsens Antfarm Studio in the fall and started to review the stuff they had wrote, rewrote and did some new stuff. Six weeks before the recording Withering Surface decided that Lukas couldn't meet the demands on prioritizing, so they parted ways in good friendship. After, they called up Nikolaj and asked if he was interested in rejoining, even if it was just for the recording. They rehearsed for those six weeks and took the chance to review, rewrite and do new stuff. Withering Surface went and recorded the best album to date 'Force The Pace'. The band has since then split up, and they played their farewell show on February 26th 2005 at Loppen in Copenhagen.