Astra - From Within

One of the front runners of the Italian progressive metal scene, Astra mark their first release for Lion Music with the dazzling "From Within". Best described as a mixture of Symphony X, Vanden Plas, early Dream Theater and Queen crossed with some AOR touches; the new album sees Astra delivering an album of high quality from start to finish with a strong accessible punch to the music on offer. Having made a good impression with press worldwide with their debut album "About Me: Through Life And Beyond" (Burning Star Records) the band have honed their style for "From Within" and look set to reach out to a wider audience of prog metal fans worldwide. Possessing a more straightforward progressive metal sound, Ten tracks of musically rich and melodically full metal, "From Within" is ultra powerful in song structure and musicianship all enhanced by an excellent production. To sum up "From Within" is accessible, catchy and impressive as hell. "From Within"s creation began in late Dec 2007 with jams done by Titta (on the drums), Emanuele, Silvio and Andrea. Filippo then joined the band for a week and gave his help to create some tunes and finished other songs. A lot of pre-production was made and with the help of internet all the vocals line and keyboard parts were ready 5 months before the recording sessions. The recording sessions ran from February - March 2008 and the mixing sessions finalised the album in September-October 2008 all being finalised with the release of "From Within" on February 20th 2009. BAND HISTORY Astra started back in 2001 in Rome as an instrumental project. At the time a 4 piece 3 of which (keyboard, bass and guitar players) are still are in the current line-up. After several line-up changes they reached the current line up: Titta Tani (main vocals), Emanuele Casali (keyboards and chorus), Andrea Casali (bass and chorus), Silvio D'Onorio De Meo (guitars) and Filippo Berlini (drums). Titta Tani is also known as the drummer of Death Metal acts Necrophagia and Daemonia and is one of the most well know metal session musicians in Italy and he divides his career as a vocalist and as a drummer and is also a former member of DGM. May 2002 saw the band win the first Italian Official Dream Theater Tribute Band Contest as undertaking a tour of Italy's clubs. They also performed featuring Dream Theater keybordist Jordan Rudess at the Italian Dream Theater fan club's 10-year party. In December 2005 Astra signed for Burning Star Records and got back to the studio to record their debut. In August 2006 Burning Star Records released 'About Me: Through Life And Beyond' which well received from press worldwide. Now the Astra are back and completed the writing, recording and mixing of their new album "From Within" that will released on February 20th 2009 through Lion Music.