Khymera - The Grand Design

[Stefan]

Press release from Frontiers Music:

BREAKING NEWS: THE RETURN OF THE KHYMERA PROJECT IS FULLY IN THE HANDS OF DENNIS WARD - NEW ALBUM "THE GRAND DESIGN" OUT IN DECEMBER ON FRONTIERS

Frontiers Music Srl is excited to announce the release of the fourth album of the KHYMERA project entitled “The Grand Design” on December 4th in Europe and North America.

While the KHYMERA project started out as an alliance between Italian producer/musician, Daniele Liverani and then Kansas singer Steve Walsh, it actually developed into a regular musical project when Pink Cream 69/Unisonic bassist and producer Dennis Ward came into the picture.While known as a bass player, Dennis always sings background vocals with his bands, so it was quite interesting for many fans to hear his voice taking the lead on the Khymera albums “A New Promise” and “The Greatest Wonder”.

While the project went on hiatus for some time, it was a natural choice now for Dennis to grab the reins and take complete control (both on the songwriting – together with Paul Logue and Michael Klein - and on the production side) of the new album, “The Grand Design”, which comes 7 years after the release of “The Greatest Wonder”.

“Everything changed this time!” says Dennis Ward. “First of all there were no songs written by outside writers, just the people involved in the recordings and Paul. I wrote all the melodies and lyrics this time, something I had not done on the previous KHYMERA albums, but regardless it was a very comfortable working situation.”

The band is also totally “new”. Other than Ward, no other old members performed on the album. “I was on tour playing with Unisonic in Europe and Japan” tells Dennis, “we had a double headlining bill with Edguy and I was really impressed by Felix Bohne’s drumming. He’s a fan of AOR and was more than happy to participate to the new KHYMERA album, which was great because his style fits so well. Whilst collaborating on one song with Paul Logue (Eden's Curse), he came up with an idea to have a certain type of choir in the song which he worked out with Pete Newdeck. I was so impressed by the choirs Pete made and how they fit to my voice that I asked him to be Khymera’s “backing vocalist”. His choir ideas greatly impacted the entire outcome of the album.

“A couple songs ideas that Paul Logue presented had beautiful pianos in them,” continues Dennis. “I too had a piano song and asked Paul who played his piano parts in. He told me of Jim Rykbost, whom I’ve never worked with. Jim is a down to earth Piano player, not just a keyboarder. With all due respect to many pop/rock keyboarders the true art of playing the Piano seems to get lost these days. Jim had the feel and the mood I was looking for and took the songs to another level. Since I also needed keys I quickly got into contact with Eric Ragno, someone I’ve worked with in the past and has so much experience and class in AOR. I love his modern approach to building AOR keyboard parts.”

Musically, the new album very much follows along the logical progression of the musical path that was started a few years ago. “The Grand Design” is a strong, extremely melodic release, which showcases the fantastic vocal abilities of Dennis and highlights his great skills as a songwriter and producer.

“The Grand Design” truly offers one of the most shining examples of what great European Melodic Rock is all about: crystal clear production, soaring vocals, killer musicianship and songwriting that reminds fans of the heydays of the genre when bands like Giuffria, Icon, and Signal ruled the airwaves.

 

KHYMERA:

Dennis Ward: bass guitar and lead vocals
Felix Bohnke: drums
Michael Klein: guitars
Eric Ragno: keyboards
Jim Rybkost: piano, additional keyboards

 

 

 

Tracklist:

 

Never Give Up On You
Tell Me Something
Say What You Want
I Believe
A Night To Remember
She’s Got The Love
Land Of Golden Dreams
The Grand Design
Streetlights
Who’s Fooling Who
Finally
Where Is The Love

 

 

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Holy shit! It's about damn time!

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Sounds exactly as one would expect from these guys.

[Jez]

It's got big boots to fill to beat 'The Greatest Wonder', so I hope, after the long wait, it comes somewhere close.

[melodicrockoz]

another interesting release

[heavyharmonies]

Sounds solid.

[Geoff]

Sounds like a winner to me. That second song is brilliant.

[gener8tr]

Oh hell yes. This has been a "Hysteria" type of anticipation for me (only this one took even longer... didn't think that was possible).

 

The Greatest Wonder was just SO damn good, I hope I can judge the new one on it's own merit... I have trouble with that at times, but the samples sound great.

[Dead Planet]

Long wait for this one....wasn't it supposed to be called Wings of Fire at one time?....better late than never though considering how good their previous output has been...

[Gotthardline]

sounds excellent to me, especially the third song ' say what you want'

[lettard]

Was actually never a big fan of these guys but this sounds great and as pointed out the 2nd song sounds brilliant

[Thomas/Coastline]

Jizzingly good (modern) AOR with a great production.

[DaHun72]

Everything is 'grand design' these days. It must have toppled the long suffering 'children of the night' as the most used phrase in rock/metal?

[Stefan]

[Gotthardline]

^{fantastic song , roll on December 4th I say}

[Monzter]

Sounds fantastic. Together with Magnus Karlsson and Find Me the most anticipated albums at the moment.

[Monzter]

Not counting Def Leppard since I will hear it tomorrow.

[KarpetRydOFunk]

*sploosh*

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Also, "everyone is a nitpicker" might have to be one of the oddest lyrics. Almost laughed when I heard that.

[Glen]

Great song.

[Stefan]

'The Grand Design' samples: http://www.amazon.de/Grand-Design-Khymera/dp/B0164MUYW6/ref=tmm_msc_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

[Geoff]

I was thinking the other day how much better Ward's side-projects (Place Vendome and Khymera) have been than solid recent PC69 releases... and this displays that heavily. What a song!

[The Rocker]

I was thinking the other day how much better Ward's side-projects (Place Vendome and Khymera) have been than solid recent PC69 releases... and this displays that heavily. What a song!

Sunstorm!

[Nightrain]

 

nice song but looks like the intro was ripped off JOURNEY's 'Ask The Lonely'

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6Mfo7WRwis

[kourosofsteel3]

 

 

nice song but looks like the intro was ripped off JOURNEY's 'Ask The Lonely'

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6Mfo7WRwis

 

 

 

Spot on, buddy!

 

Perhaps they wanted to make a point for Journey's decision not to include one of their top 3 tracks in an album (obviously best offs don't count here!) showing simultaneously a respect to their idols.

 

It's like Velázquez' painting "Las Melinas" with an obvious hint/homage to Van Eyck's " Arnolfini Portrait".

 

 

Now, what's the chip on your shoulder?