New CD Release By Prog Supergroup Amaran's Plight

For Immediate Release

Debut CD Release By Progressive Rock Supergroup
Amaran's Plight

ProgRock Records Releases New CD By Amaran's Plight Featuring All-Star Line-Up

8/2/05 - Rancho Santa Margarita, CA - ProgRock Records, formidable US progressive rock label, is pleased to announce the release of the exciting debut CD by Amaran's Plight. The band's premier CD release has been greatly anticipated throughout the 'prog world' and immediate reaction has been fervid!

Amaran's Plight can only be described as a new 'Supergroup' and features the talents of:

DC Cooper (Ex-Royal Hunt, Silent Force)
Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery)
Nick D'Virgilio (Spock's Beard, Kevin Gilbert, Tears for Fears, Genesis)
Kurt Barabas (Under the Sun)

The band's debut album Voice in the Light upon release by Progrock Records and its label partners has been receiving rave reviews from fans and music critics worldwide. Voice in the Light was recorded in 2006 at Gary Wehrkamp's New Horizon Studios and described as textbook Symphonic Progressive Metal. It combines the soaring vocals of DC Cooper with the master riffs and melodies of Gary Wehrkamp, backed by the sonic, dynamic and explosive rhythm section of D'Virgilio and Barabas.

Gary Wehrkamp and DC Cooper are no strangers to working together. Gary is the keyboardist, guitarist and producer of veteran progressive rock ensemble, Shadow Gallery. DC Cooper appeared on their 1999 conceptual piece Tyranny as a guest vocalist on the epic track "New World Order". Fans of Shadow Gallery have longed for a Wehrkamp/Cooper collaboration ever since. DC Cooper is the voice behind the power prog-metal band, Silent Force. Before joining forces with guitarist Alex Boyrodt to form Silent Force, he was vocalist for veteran proggers, Royal Hunt. Nick D'Virgilio is one of the highest rated drummers in progressive rock today. Besides being the driving force behind Spock's Beard, he has also played with Mike Kennealy, Kevin Gilbert, Tears For Fears and Genesis. Nick takes drumming to the next level on Voice in the Light with an over the top performance that adds emotion, heart and a sonic punch that makes the band's debut album a must hear. Kurt Barbaras is one of the founding members of Los Angeles based Under The Sun, who also have a live CD released on ProgRock Records entitled Schematism - Onstage With Under The Sun. Along with Shadow Gallery, Under The Sun was part of the progressive rock revival spearheaded by Magna Carta records in the early 90's. Kurt's bass playing is often singled out as the driving force of Under The Sun.

Amaran's Plight Voice in the Light is an excursion into the heart of progressive rock music. The band's adept individual performing skills and composing talents takes the music to a sophisticated level of listening. Current plans for Amaran's Plight to perform live in support of the new CD release are in the works.

For more information on both releases by Amaran's Plight and Under The Sun contact www.progrockrecords.com

Press Inquiries:
Glass Onyon PR
[email protected]
Ph: 828-350-8158

You know what sucks? I bought it off iTunes and the track Shattered Dreams skipped. I emailed their distributor, and the guy told me no else had that problem, which I accept b/c my computer has done weird things like this before (probably lost internet connection mid download) Now I'm wating for iTunes to either give me a new version of the track or to let me redownload the album. The other tracks work fine and the album sounds great, but that was a major bummer.

I highly recommend Mindawn for purchasing music electronically...you get high quality Flac or Ogg files, and it is also a smaller company with much more personal service than iTunes...They have all the Progrock releases on there, too!

jplanet wrote: I highly recommend Mindawn for purchasing music electronically...you get high quality Flac or Ogg files, and it is also a smaller company with much more personal service than iTunes...They have all the Progrock releases on there, too!

In fact they only have a very small selection of prog albums ... but I appreciated what they're trying to do.

I downloaded the album from emusic and it sounds very good.  Emusic has about 10 Progrock Records albums, but they also have almost the entire InsideOut Music catalogue and that is right where my tastes lie.  First impressions, this is a very good album.

NaturalScience wrote: John, have Shadow Circus tracks been made available through Mindawn?

Yes, Mindawn's got them! Of course, that's a big part of the reason I'd recommend Mindawn over iTunes! ;-)

Mindawn has nearly 40,000 tracks now, most of that prog. We've been working on Inside Out and Magna Carta for a long time, but they are slow to do anything, other than that, we have a very large selection of prog and also material you can't find anywhere else, like some collaborations between Steve Walsh and Vince DiCola.

Let me say something about eMusic from an artists perspective, they don't pay crap, I see payments of $.02 for a song, so if you want to support the artists, the best place is Mindawn if possible.

I did take care of the gentleman that had the problem with Shattered Dreams. In case some of you don't know, I own and run both ProgRock Records and Mindawn.

Another cool thing about Amaran's Plight is that it just hit #1 in the progarchives for 2007 so far, which is very flattering. I'm sure it is just because of my 10 second keyboard solo in Viper :)

with most digital distribution services the only way to get in them is through a propogator. That 3rd party only takes a small percentage, and basically you sign up with them and they put you out with everyone that they work with, you can't really pick and choose for the most part. All I know is looking at our royalty reports is that Napster and eMusic don't pay crap back. I've never used those services, so I don't know how they are set up specifically. If I had more time, I'd spend some more time checking it. I should probably do that when the kids get back in school.

iTunes is $10 for a lossy download and Mindawn is $9 for a lossless download. You can't find any of our material for example on Amazon for $10 unless it is used, and if they claim it isn't used, they are lying.

A big reason I created Mindawn several years ago was because at the time it was impossible as a small label to get your material on these download services.

The nature of some of these services is odd, for example you've got the all you can eat, monthly subscription service that absolutely rapes the artist, and I believe they will die off soon as more people realize how screwed they are getting. Then there is the more 'rental' model, where you basically pay to play it each time. I think this is a messed up model for both the consumer and the artist, but that is another scenario where payments are very low. Also services like to work with propagators, it is less entities to deal with, same reason why big chain stores deal with big distributors, makes life easy. This is one reason why I designed Mindawn the way that I did, it is no difference to deal with an indie artist or a big distributor or a small label because we allow them to manage their own content, which no one else does.