Latvian Pagan metal masters SKYFORGER have been honoured in the "best rock album" category at the 15th annual Latvian Music Awards "Gada Balva" ceremony (the Latvian equivalent to the Grammy awards) for their latest album Kurbads, released on Metal Blade Records in April 2010.

The largest and oldest Latvian music awards show was held February 22nd at the National Theatre in Riga, Latvia and was broadcast live on the Latvian channel TV3. Check out the award moment below:

It's the first time a metal band has won this respectable Latvian music industry prize.

On March 18th there have also been the Latvian Metal Music Awards, organized by the local metal community and the results were determined by all Latvian metal fans via Internet voting.

Skyforger won the two categories they were nominated at:

Best Metal Album Of 2010

Best Metal Band Of 2010

Comments the band: "Skyforger would like to greatly thank everyone who voted for us and appreciated our music! Paldies visiem faniem!"

In other news Skyforger announce a line-up change. Guitar player Martins is too busy with his new job and therefore could not make any further commitments to the band's activities. Welcome new axeman Egons, who is also member of world famous Latvian post-folk band IL?I.

Comments Skyforger: "Egons is a professional musician who also works as a producer and recording engineer. He has a great working attitude and the band is already busy working on new songs."

Egons has already played his first major concert in France where Skyforger performed two shows in one day - acoustic and metal. See some live videos from the Cernunnos festival in Paris: