Altitude is our 4th album and it is the 2nd album that is released by Metal Blade. It is a progression of our last album in respect of being an album that contains symphonic rock songs with some progressive elements. This album is more darker then the last one I believe.

We always make preproductions (complete demos) for the album, and we spend most of summer 2008 doing that. We recorded the drums in the last week of September and recorded the guitars, synths and vocals in oktober (at our homestudio). The in November everything was mixed and mastered.

Since we live far from each other and have full time jobs, we write mostly at home. We start of with a basic structure of a song and circulate that through the group. Everyone ads his/her ideas to it (for example, I will record the drums for these songs/ideas, but sometimes also add lyrics or come up with additional guitars or synths). We will go on with this process untill we are fully satisfied. These compositions are our preproductions (which are songs that are finished, but that do sound like demos). From these preproductions we choose in a democratic way the songs for the actual album.

The lyrics are mostly written by the brothers Mats and Jens, and deal about their personal situations and feelings. You can read the story behind the lyrics written by them at this web-address:
http://www.autumn-band.com/altitude_own_words.html

We seem to have evolved from the classic female fronted (gothic) metal, to more symphonic rock during these four albums, but since I have been there along the whole ride, I cannot see the real transitions. I always felt it was a natural evolution that comes with listening to more and different bands and becoming a more experienced musician through time.
The biggest difference between the previous album and this one, is that it is more darker and melancholic and it contains more layers, which makes it a bit harder to grasp the first time you listen to it.

We all came up and modified the concept. We always do brainstorm sessions together after when our artworker, Ruud van Wijngaarden and me make the real artwork.

We will play most of the album live since we are very enthousiatic about it and Marjan feels, obviously, most comfortable with. We mix the album with songs from the previous albums.

We will shoot a video for one of the songs, we are currently working on it. It will probably be a "performance clip", meaning that it will contain a lot of instrument footage (it will have a live feel).

I think Paradise nox is a good song to get a feel about the whole album. It contains all the elements that can be heard throughout the album. So if you want to know what Altitude stands for, check out this song.

We have no tours planned yet, but we are working on a small tour through Germany. Hopefully we can do some more, but nothing is certain at this time.

The fact that we do every aspect of the band democratically marks the atmosphere in this band. Everyone has his/her voice in making music / artwork and other aspects of the band. Sometimes this slows down progress a bit, but ultimately it makes every member equally important (I think that is one of the reasons we are still going strong).

I hope your listeners will check out the Altitude album. For those who want a preview of the whole album, check out our myspace page, the complete album is there to listen. We hope you will be enjoying our music and purchase the album.