Patrick Savelkoul: Vocals
Ronny Tyssen: Guitar
Gavin Harte: Drums
Remy Dieteren: Guitar
Rene Rokx: Bass
After close to 10 years of hard labor and battles to bring their music to the masses, all of Callenish Circle’s hard work finally started to pay off when Metal Blade Records offered the band a worldwide record deal for 4 albums. The first album on Metal Blade Records (released early 2002) entitled Flesh_Power_Dominion was received massive feedback from the press; over 200 interviews were done with magazines and radio stations all over the world. After doing a Benelux-tour to promote the new album, Callenish Circle finally hit the European road in May 2002 with their Swedish label mates Amon Amarth and Vomitory. The tour, which lasted four weeks, gave the band the chance to cruise all throughout Europe and left a crushing impression on the fans. In the summer the band played the world famous Ozzfest in Holland and several other festivals. After the summer months passed the band started focussing on writing new material that would take them to a whole new level of world domination.
Soon it became clear that the new material was going to be again a step further into extremity, without losing the typical melodies and atmosphere, which always have been trademarks in the Callenish Circle sound. More power, more intensity and more variation. Because of the ultra-fat sound of Flesh_Power_Dominion the band decided to work again with producer Andy Classen in the Stage One Studio and Niklas Sundin was responsible for all artwork again. All under the slogan “never change a winning team”. Last but not least the album was mastered by Peter Neuber at Mega Wimp Sound in Germany. The band’s 4th album My Passion // Your Pain was released worldwide on the 5th of May 2003 through Metal Blade Records and received again a massive response from the worldwide press. Again around 200 interviews were done and the album received top-notch critics almost everywhere. Besides, the album was exclusively licensed to Soundholic Records (Japan), Sum Records (South America), Fono Records (Russia) and Indy Pop Records (South East Asia) to guarantee an even better promotion and distribution in these territories. Right after the release of My Passion // Your Pain, Callenish Circle did a Benelux mini-tour with Swedish death metal legends Dismember and in August the band played the 2 major German metal festivals Wacken Open Air and Summer Breeze. In October the band hit the European road again for 3 weeks under the “Bonded by Metal over Europe”-banner with among others Exodus, Nuclear Assault and Agent Steel. Early 2004 Callenish Circle played a bunch of Dutch headline shows and in February the band flew over to Spain to play a very successful show at the Piorno Rock Festival. Due to personal circumstances drummer Gavin wasn’t able to spend much time in the band for the rest of the year but still the band played a couple of summer festivals and in September Callenish Circle did a successful Benelux mini-tour with Dismember again.
To celebrate their 12th birthday Callenish Circle also re-issued their complete pre-Metal Blade Records catalogue on a 2-CD titled Forbidden Empathy. The 2-CD was released in September 2004 through Dutch label Karmageddon Media (formerly Hammerheart Records) in Europe and overseas in January 2005 through Candlelight USA. The Forbidden Empathy 2-CD contains the Graceful… yet Forbidding album (1999), the Escape EP (1998), the Drift of Empathy album (1996) and the Lovelorn demo (1995) with brand new artwork from Niklas Sundin (Cabin Fever Media) and all recordings were digitally re-mastered by Berthus Westerhuis at Franky’s Recording Kitchen in Holland.
After a mini-tour with Dismember the band actively started writing material for their upcoming and meanwhile 5th album titled [Pitch.Black.Effects]. Just a month before the recordings Callenish Circle decided to continue their path without bass player Rocco. For the studio recordings the band recruited (session) bass player Maurice Brouwers (Engine of Pain) and live the band will perform with Wim Vossen (ex-Mangled, Stormrider). The new album was recorded during the months of May and June at aRe U Recordings in The Netherlands with producer Gail Liebling (mastermind behind Gail of God) behind the knobs. The mix was done in July with the highly acclaimed Tue Madsen (The Haunted, Illdisposed, Mnemic) at his already legendary Antfarm Studio in Denmark. The album was mastered again by Peter Neuber at Mega Wimp Sound in Germany and, last but not least, the artwork for the new album was created by Danish art talent Mircea Gabriel Eftemie at Cadaverman Media.
