Guest Solo for Helion Prime

Hey everyone! Been a while but I'm back with another musical update. ShadowStrike was invited to partake in doing a guest solo for the SciFi themed power metal band Helion Prime. Ryan Patane (keyboards) and myself (guitar) did a dual keys and guitar solo and well....here's the pre production (demo) of it!

Helion Prime's debut album cover art

https://soundcloud.com/wiiyamoto/helion-prime-shadowstrike-guest-solo-pre-production


If you will, please go to Helion Prime's Bandcamp (https://helionprime.bandcamp.com/merch/hp-logo-t-shirt) for merch and music updates!

And most importantly.... head on over to Helion Prime's Indiegogo Campaign to help fund their album! They reached the goal but every bit more helps! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/helion-prime-debut-album)


Hope you all enjoy!

Legend Of Valley Doom Choir Vocal Recording: Conclusion!

Well that's a wrap, folks! March 6th, 2015 after months of practice and weeks of recording I finished my choir vocals for Marius Danielsen's Legend of Valley Doom (http://www.mariusdanielsen.com). It was a great experience to be a part of and I have to say two big "thank yous."

Marius Danielsen

One is to Marius Danielsen for choosing me to be a part of this project. It was great to work on some music from another source, and it was great practice and experience to do exclusively choir styled vocals. It helped me get a better feel for my voice, and techniques for recording this style for possible future endeavors.

My second thanks goes out to my friend Ryan Patane, who helped me by engineering and recording the vocals. Without him helping the quality wouldn't be there, and I can't thank him enough for opening up his time and home setup to help with me with this.

Album art for Optic's "Iris In"

By the way...Ryan is the keyboardist for NY Progressive Metal band, Optic. You should go to their bandcamp and check out (and buy) their debut album "Iris In." (http://opticband.bandcamp.com)

Thanks, buddy! I had a blast.

Well a little more hype and info on the album for the songs I did this round. I ended my sessions with the title track "Legend Of Valley Doom." By this time the beers popped open and Friday night was official. As we listened to the final recordings and all the other songs we have done, Ryan shed a single tear stating "This was beautiful." He couldn't contain himself so he is now fasting until the album comes out.

Did that actually happen? No, well except the beer and celebrating. But what I can say about the title track is it has an epic "national anthem" type of sound and feel, featuring most of the singers (i think all) from the album. Still, my all around favourite track is "Chamber of Wisdom" but that might be because Edu and Jonas have been a part of two of my favourite metal bands.

Without giving too much away, I believe this is a solid album let a lone metal opera. Marius should be very proud of it, and I think it will have a nice following. Of course, I have not heard any final mixes and some tracks didn't have vocals in them so I can only give my opinion from the demos and stuff, but what I heard is very nice. It has a nice balance of feeling epic but reserved. Not every song is a bombastic symphonic fest, but the choruses will always have a bigger feeling.

Well that's about it. Hooray! Thanks again to Ryan and Marius...I can't wait for the album to be finished \m/

Legend Of Valley Doom Choir Vocal Recording Part 2.

Here's just a quick update on my end about the recording process for Marius Danielsen's "Legend of Valley Doom." (http://www.mariusdanielsen.com)

Roger Watson

Last Thursday (February 26th) I did some more vocal recordings for the choirs on this epic project. I actually got delayed a bit after I finished the track "Chamber of Wisdom." I had forgotten to record the key change at the end of the song, and I had to go back and finish that track, but the writing is such that the phrasing of the chorus changes, so the harmonies I had recorded before would not fit in the chorus with the key change. After some hard work I finally finished it and was able to push on! The writing on the album has very subtle and sophisticated nuances like this that makes key moments shine.

The second track I recorded was "Lost In My Dreams" which features the great Elisa C. Martin (Hamka, Ex Fairyland, Ex Dark Moor) and Marius Danielsen himself; my introduction to the track was the great narration by Roger Watson. Hearing his epic voice over the booming studio monitors was ridiculous haha. I finished up this track and again, its another epic track made even better by Elisa C. Martin's voice. She has such cool voice that's really unique and it helps make the track shine nicely.

Elisa C. Martin

By this time, after hours of no food, and working on making sure my choirs, harmonies and all, were the beat they could be I was pretty burnt out haha. I began to start one more track but was running out of wits. After a long day of work and recording  I had to post pone recording the remaining choirs for this week. Get ready everyone!

Legend Of Valley Doom Choir Vocal Recording Part 1.

So I started recording the choir vocals for Marius Danielsen's Legend Of Valley Doom (http://www.mariusdanielsen.com), an epic power metal opera featuring heavy metal greats such as Tim "Ripper" Owens, Timo Tolkki, Edu Falaschi, Jonas Heidget, Mike LePond, Barend Corbois, Chris Caffery, Elisa C. Martin, and many more.

I managed to finish 4 tracks, and by next week I should have everything finished up nicely. It sounds AMAZING so far, and I know i've said it a million times, but I am very happy to be a part of the project and I'm very thankful Marius has given me a the chance and opportunity to be in his project.

So far my favourite track to record on has been the track "Chamber Of Wisdom" featuring Edu Falaschi (ex ANGRA, Almah) and Jonas Heidgert (Dragonland) both on vocals. (You can hear the official demo release of the song here: https://soundcloud.com/legacymagazin/marius-danielsen-the-legend-of-valley-doom). It has a great melody, and I'm not gonna lie... I was fanboying pretty hard while recording my choir parts haha.

Wellp, that's it. A short update for my part in this project. More updates to come!

Welcome To My Blog!

Hey everyone! Just making an introduction post for my (first) blog. My name is Matt Krais, and I'm a musician, composer, songwriter, and normal video game nerd type guy who resides in New York. I'm making this blog as a sort of diary or documentary of my music career and other snafus that goes on in my life.

For anyone not familiar with me (which is everyone because who the hell am I anyway?) I am in a Metal band ShadowStrike from Long Island, New York (https://shadowstrike.bandcamp.com). At the time of this post we are currently writing our debut album having a demo album and an ep release under our belts. It is something I always have been interested in doing, and I have been blessed to have a talent for writing and performing music.

In recent news, I was drafted by Marius Danielsen for his metal opera "Marius Danielsen's Legend of Valley Doom" (http://www.mariusdanielsen.com/). I will be doing choir vocals for some of the tracks on the album, and will be working along side industry greats such as Timo Tolkki, "Ripper" Owens, Edu Falaschi, Jonas Heidgert, Elisa C. Martin, and more. This is a great opportunity and I am very excited to hear the final products of all the great talent involved on the album (even from one of my peers from over here in American John Yelland (https://judicatormetal.bandcamp.com/ and https://disforia.bandcamp.com/).

Music aside, I also have a passion or interest (whatever you will call it) for video games. I think along with music, video games can capture imagination. Especially with the design and creation part of them... there is something very charming about it. For those who care my favourite consoles are (not in any order) Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Gamecube. I think the gaming experiences I have had on those consoles are amazing, and just have a unique and charming feel to consoles themselves.

I also played a lot of an open source shooter based on ID softwares Quake III engine called "Open Arena" (http://openarena.ws/smfnews.php). My gamer name was "Wiiyamoto" (a pun from the great game designer Shigeru Miyamoto's surname).

Current generation consoles I own are: Wii U. That's it. I have no plans of buying a PS4 or Xbox ONE. If you want to add me on Nintendo Network, my id is "Mr.Wiiyamoto".

Well there you have it. Not too much I can say at this point, but I just wanted to give people a little introduction and look at me on the surface. Hope this blog will pick up and keep going, and I really hope you check out my, and my friend's music and above all enjoy it! Thanks everyone, and welcome to my blog!