Help Katagory V "Resurrect the Album!"

Met-Al

Member
Oct 12, 2004
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Hi, everyone!

My name is Albert, and I sing for the Salt Lake City-based progressive/power metal band Katagory V. I normally post on the ProgPower forum, but I want to spread the word about something that means the world to myself and my band.

For those of you who are not familiar with the us, you can learn all about the history of the band and find downloads of some of our songs from our previous four albums at www.katagory5.com. To briefly sum up our sound, I think we're best described as an amalgamation of the varying styles of melodic hard rock and metal, be they prog, power, AOR, traditional, and even a bit of tech and thrash. In fact, as a fan of Power Quest myself, I think you'll find something to enjoy in our brand of melodic metal!

I come to you today to present an Indiegogo campaign to help us release our fifth album, "Resurrect the Insurgence." This marks the first album featuring the band's current lineup, and we truly believe that it's the strongest effort produced by any lineup of the group to date. The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered between the latter half of 2010 and the first half of 2011.

You may be wondering why an album that's been finished for three years has yet to be released. Unfortunately, to produce an album that meets the top standards of the current recording industry, a lot of money was invested in recording equipment and professional mixing and mastering services (provided by none other than Dennis Ward of Pink Cream 69 and Unisonic fame!).

This is why we need your help. All of the work on the recording end is finished. We just need to put the package together to present a professional looking project. We've set a goal of $5,000 to acquire professional artwork, a proper layout and booklet, pressing, and distribution of the album. As with all Indiegogo campaigns, we're offering what we think are some nice little perks for helping us to achieve our goal.

To give you a taste of what you can expect from your investment, we present two of the album's songs ("Far Too Long" and "I Am Change") for you to hear at www.reverbnation.com/katagoryv.

Those interested in learning more about the campaign can visit the link below:
www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-katagory-v-resurrect-the-latest-album-and-get-it-released

On behalf of the band, I really appreciate you taking the time to read this. We're grateful for any support you can give. Even if you can't contribute financially (which we completely understand, given the current economic situation), you can help us a great deal by spreading the word via the forums and websites you frequently visit. I'll check back in periodically to answer any questions and offer status updates. Feel free to let us know what you think of the tunes, and thanks again for your time!


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
Lead Vocalist of Katagory V
 
Hello and best of luck with your campaign!

PQ is the patron saint of underrated bands let down by financial backing, so you can definitely expect those passionate about keeping good power metal alive and well here :D

Your link seems broken, I think it's this one:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-katagory-v-resurrect-the-latest-album-and-get-it-released

I will check the music out soon as I can. For spreading the word I would recommend two things - YouTube links to your songs, as the most popular music sharing site and being more embed -friendly I think it would help to spread word further.

Possible second - www.reddit.com/r/powermetal a great and fair sized community of PM passionate people who often help with campaigns like this. Great exposure too.
 
Thanks for the pointers, Dom! Thanks even more for spotting the broken link! I wonder how that happened. Anywho, I hope you like what you hear. Take care!


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
Hey Albert,

Hope you are doing great man :)

As you can see already, we have some cool fans around these parts always willing to help out. I've been a fan of you guys for quite a while so I'll endeavour to spread the word around Facebook as well mate.
 
Thank you so much, Steve!

You're right about the fans on this forum. These are some great folks! It seems that most band forums on Ultimate Metal are dead these days, so it's nice to see that there are fans of melodic metal that like to discuss this sort of thing outside of Facebook.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated. I'm glad to hear that you dig the band's music. If you like what you've heard in the past, just wait until you hear this album!

I certainly dig your work with Power Quest (especially "Master of Illusion"), and I'll be picking up the Eden's Curse album as soon as possible. The band's first three albums had quite an upward slope in quality, and with you manning the keys now, I can only see that trend continuing. Keep up the good work!


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
Yeah, this forum although not being the biggest community in the world it has managed to transcend the whole social media avalanche that we have been bombarded with these past few years. Definitely down to the legendary PQ fanbase....and the great thing is, even though PQ have been inactive for a year there is still a wonderful sense of friendship here.

Hope you like the EC record when you hear it Albert......check out the new singer especially.....vocal gold to my ears :)
 
Hi, folks!

I'm just checking in with an update on the campaign. Unfortunately,the first two weeks have been very slow. We've only raised roughly 11% of the funds that we need to make the release of our album a reality. We truly appreciate the contributions from those who have pitched in thus far, and we also appreciate the efforts made by those who have spread the word about the campaign on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and the various metal-related sites all over the web. We still have a long way to go, but we hope that with our combined efforts, the world will finally get to hear this album!

For those who are interested but haven't made a contribution yet, we've added a few more perks that may grab your interest. Aside from receiving the CD upon it's release, getting a bootleg DVD of the band's best performance to date, and taking lessons with our drummer and guitarist, you now also have the options of getting a drum head signed by the entire band, t-shirts from the releases of the past two albums, and even the band's entire discography to date! Yes, that even includes a copy of the long-out-of-print debut album, "Present Day!" There's even one absolutely ridiculous perk that you'll have to see to believe!

I'll check back in the coming weeks with another update. In the meantime, feel free to offer any feedback. Do you like the perks offered thus far? Is there anything you'd like to see us offer, and if so, what would you be willing to give to see it happen? Do you like the new material that we've released online? Do you think we should suck eggs? Let us know!


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
Alright, folks!

We've now reached the halfway point of the campaign. Though we've received some outstanding contributions, we have yet to break 32% of our goal.

For those of you who aren't too keen on the idea of crowdfunding, I urge you to click on the link below and read an article written by our bassist and founder, Dustin Mitchell:
http://thetrichordist.com/2014/07/18...of-katagory-v/

If you read the article, you'll find that we're just as uncomfortable asking for money upfront as many people are uncomfortable to give said money. We realize that we're not exactly trying to fund a cure for cancer, but we're not exactly making potato salad, either.

That said, we truly appreciate all of the support that we've received thus far, and we really hope that those who have pledged their money can reap the rewards of their contributions.


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
Well, folks, we're approximately two weeks away from the deadline. Despite the awesome contributions made by some outstanding folks, (a great number of which are from the Ultimate Metal forums!), we still haven't even reached half of our goal.

This is the time when I must beg any of you who are on the fence to take another look at the page. $15 gets you the album with shipping included. Just look at it as a pre-order. With the amount of money we've raised thus far, we would need about 212 people to contribute just enough money to get the CD in their hands. Another thing to keep in mind is that everyone will be refunded if we don't reach our goal. Thus, you lose nothing by making a pledge!

We would love for the world to hear what took so much time, labor, and money to create, but we really need your help to get over the last hump. If you haven't checked out the available tunes, please go to www.reverbnation.com/katagoryv today.


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
Thank you so much, guys!

It's nice to see that there are still some diehard fans of power metal out there. It's folks like yourselves who give me that glimmer of hope that I need to keep pushing on with this thing!


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
First off, I want to thank all the folks that have contributed to our campaign in the past two weeks. Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

Sadly, though, we have less than four days left to raise more than half of the money we need to put the final touches on this release. Unless a miracle happens and, say, 192 people come out of the woodwork to pre-order this album, I'm afraid we're doomed.

This will be my final plea. If you've ever liked any of Katagory V's music, please visit the Indiegogo page, check out some of the new music, and make a pledge. I truly believe that there is something for every fan of melodic progressive and power metal on this album. The only chance of this band continuing in any capacity lies within this campaign, so it's up to you dedicated music fans.

Does this sound desperate? Indeed, it does. Does it kill me to beg you folks for money? With every last beat of my heart. I just hope you'll look beyond the desperation and find a good band that could use a little help.


Stay metal. Never rust.
Albert
 
Even if this doesn't pan out, I'm sure this won't be the end for you guys. Maybe the climate just wasn't right but I wouldn't go all in on 1 campaign. Regroup, muster even greater efforts when the timing is right and maybe give it another shot. Maybe with Kickstarter. That gets a lot of successes.

I still think, with others, that PQ should've given crowd-sourcing a shot for one last album. There's an awful lot of untapped potential with stuff like this, you just can't expect to hit the bullseye in one shot.
 
...and there you have it, folks.

On behalf of the band, I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this campaign. Whether you pitched in $15 or $350, you gave us that much more hope toward realizing our dream. Unfortunately, despite your support, we weren't able to raise enough money to give this album a proper release. However, we decided from the beginning of this campaign that it would be all or nothing. Therefore, since we didn't raise the amount of money needed to get this album in your hands, you will all be refunded.

A huge thank you goes out to Deron Blevins for essentially allowing me to (I hate this term) spam numerous band forums on Ultimate Metal. You had the authority to boot me off and tell me to get bent. However, you were supportive enough to let me spread the word throughout this online community. To top it off, you made a contribution to the fund! That was mighty awesome of you.

I would also like to personally thank Steve for welcoming me to the Power Quest forum and Dom for the feedback and support. You guys are okay in my book, and I hope our paths cross one day. In the meantime, I'll be sure to stop by on this forum whenever I have two cents to throw around.

To touch on what you posted, Dom, as much as I would like to give the campaign another shot, it was hard enough raising 55% of the funds we needed with a two-month trial. I actually have a number of long-time friends who didn't even raise a brow when I made the announcement of the campaign, let alone contribute to the fund or even so much as make a Facebook post about it for their friends to see. Add to that the fact that bands with much bigger fanbases are using this platform to fund their projects (have you seen the one that Pagan's Mind started up? 20,000 euros!), and you have bands like mine struggling just to get the crumbs from the pie.

For anyone interested, bassist Dustin Mitchell has written a press release regarding what the future holds for the members of Katagory V that you can read on our Facebook page. Thanks again for all of the support.


Albert
 
No worries mate, any time. Got my refund. Pissed off this is how things have turned out but that's the state of things these days. PQ and their fans know that sting all too well.