Norther

Norther is a melodic death metal band from Espoo, Finland whose style incorporates elements of heavy metal, black metal and power metal. Many critics often compare Norther's sound (particularly of their first album) to that of Children of Bodom.
The band began in early 1996 under the name of Requiem, and was assembled by guitarist Petri Lindroos and drummer Toni Hallio, accompanied by two other musicians. In the beginning, the band suffered from the lack of a proper rehearsal place, but in late 1997, guitarist Alexander Kuoppala (ex-Children of Bodom) found a suitable place for them to practice at Lepakko; around this time the band decided to change their name from Requiem to Decayed. Their luck was short-lived, however, as their new rehearsal place was soon to be demolished. The musicians who played with Lindroos and Hallio soon lost their motivation and quit Requiem.
After a few months, the band managed to find another rehearsal place, and began looking for members to complete their line-up. After quite a few auditions, they were unable to find musicians that they deemed fit to play with them, and thus went on a hiatus, which lasted until the beginning of 2000, when they met guitarist Kristian Ranta. The band became active once more, and with the help of two guys who were friends of Lindroos - Sebastian Knight and Joakim Ekroos - the band recorded their first demo in November 2000 entitled Warlord, for the first time using the name "Norther". A promising demo led them to signing a deal with Spinefarm Records.
Due to internal problems, Ekroos and Knight left the band; this lead Norther into finding its first stable formation when bassist Jukka Koskinen and keyboardist Tuomas Planman joined the band.
When the album Dreams of Endless War was recorded and released in 2002, Norther received a positive response from the specialized press and began playing gigs in the Helsinki area. Following this, the band maintained a prolific release schedule, releasing the albums Mirror of Madness (2003), Death Unlimited (2004), Till Death Unites Us (2006), and N (2008) as well as the singles Released (2002), Unleash Hell (2003), Spreading Death (2003), and Scream (2006), the Mini-DVD single Spreading Death, and the EPs Solution 7 (2005), and No Way Back (2007).
In October of 2005, drummer Toni Hallio left the band, leaving guitarist/vocalist Lindroos as the only remaining original member. Hallio was replaced by Heikki Saari, drummer of Virtuocity.
Norther entered Astia Studios in Lappeenranta, Finland in August/September to record their next full length album. The follow-up to 2006's "Till Death Unites Us" will be produced by Anssi Kippo. The new album N has been set for a March 2008 release. On November 21, 2007, Norther announced they had signed a new record deal with Century Media Records, while Marquee Avalon will distribute albums in Japan.