Reactivated Norwegian progressive metallers CONCEPTION, who feature in their ranks former KAMELOT singer Roy Khan, have launched a fundraising campaign with the goal of recording their first full-length album in more than two decades. The tremendous response to the crowdfunding venture for last year's acclaimed EP "My Dark Symphony", allied to CONCEPTION's desire to retain control of the production process, meant that a new pre-order campaign to support the forthcoming album was always likely. This despite the problems posed by the bankruptcy of previous partner PledgeMusic; having seen to it that all fans have received any missing orders, the band is set to move forward with a new crowdfunding venture which ensures that the band are now in direct control of income, and hence can guarantee that all orders are processed without issue. Says Khan: "We are so grateful to our fantastic fans and the support they have shown, so it feels natural to move on to a full album. We have lots of new exciting material we long to complete and just cross our fingers that we will be able to release a full album in 2020!" Since releasing the album "Flow" in 1997, the CONCEPTION members — Roy Khan, Tore Østby, Ingar Amlien and Arve Heimdal — have been working on separate projects, but fans never gave up hope of seeing them together as a band again. There had been rumors and speculations for some time about a possible reunion, and earlier last year, they confirmed that they had quietly been working for some time on this new material. After releasing their 1991 "The Last Sunset" debut on its own CSF Records ("Conception Self-Financed Records"), CONCEPTION was signed by Germany's Noise Records when label head Karl-Ulrich Walterbach was given a demo tape of the band. Walterbach, who by then had largely soured on melodic and power metal, was impressed by CONCEPTION's progressive angle and thought-provoking lyrics and saw them as an alternative to the more fantasy-driven melodic metal bands on the label. The band's 1993 "Parallel Minds" and 1995 "In Your Multitude" full-lengths were well-received by fans and critics alike, earning CONCEPTION opening slots with the likes of GAMMA RAY and SKYCLAD. CONCEPTION's last studio album, 1997's "Flow" was more experimental in nature, prompting them to fall out of favor with Noise, leading to the dissolution of the band in 1998. Shortly thereafter, Khan was contacted by KAMELOT leader Thomas Youngblood, who invited the Norwegian vocalist to join the band. Khan announced his exit from KAMELOT in April 2011 after taking several months off to recover from a "burnout."
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