DRAGONFORCE are gearing up to re-release their debut album, entitled Valley of the Damned - Remixed & Remastered, with a bonus DVD in October 2007. The remixed debut and their second album Sonic Firestorm will also be available for the first time on picture disc vinyl. Guitarist Herman Li has issued the following statement:

"For some time now we've been thinking about how great it would be that one day we could remix and remaster the Valley Of The Damned album and re-release it. I still remember the amount of time and effort we spent recording that album, and financing it myself! Ignoring all the deadlines that were set for the delivery of the master tapes, we went into a lengthy recording period only to finally run out of money which meant we didn't have the time to give the songs the mix and production sound they deserve. Although many people thought the original release had a great production, it is uncomparable to the massive production sound on the albums Sonic Firestorm and Inhuman Rampage. To tell you the truth, the original release was mixed in only 36 hours as we spent most of the time working on capturing the best performances and improving the songs as much as possible.

Now, after 18 months on the road, three times around the world for the Inhuman Rampage Tour, our wish is granted with a bigger budget, better gear, more time and more experience to bring new life to Valley Of The Damned. I know many old fans still consider Valley Of The Damned to be our classic album. It is an album full of great songs that a lot of our new fans still haven't discovered yet unless they see us live since we have included songs from our debut album in all of our shows.

We have spent the last three weeks with producer Karl Groom remixing all the songs and giving more attention to detail than we previously had a chance to do. The final result is exactly what we want now, and beyond what was possible when we first finished Valley Of The Damned four years ago. We are including a DVD in this package because we want to give you, the fans, as much as possible on this re-release. One thing is for sure, this jam packed DVD took way longer than I initially thought and I definitely under estimated the time it takes to put so much archive footage on it. This DVD will give you a feel of what was happening before we started to spend our lives on tour buses and airplanes!

For the November / December UK & European Tour we intend to play a few more songs from Valley that we haven't played for a long time, so hopefully we'll see you at one of the shows. I think all you diehard fans will love this package which will be released worldwide in early October and who knows, we might even get a few new fans along the way!"

Best to you all,

Herman Li

Album details are as follows:

Disc 1 - CD: 'Invocation Of The Apocalyptic Evil', 'Valley Of The Damned', 'Black Fire', 'Black Winter Night', 'Starfire', 'Disciples Of Babylon', 'Revelations', 'Evening Star', 'Heart Of A Dragon'.

Disc 2 - DVD:

-- Interviews with the band members and producer reflecting on the Valley Of The Damned period and the remix
-- Previously unreleased professionally filmed live video recording from their first Japanese tour (commentary versions from Herman and Vadim, and from ZP and Karl)
-- DragonForce Home videos; see through the eyes of Sam and ZP in Japan on the day of the show.
-- Footage from the drum recording session in Denmark (commentary version from Herman and Vadim)
-- Remixing Valley Of The Damned: get technical with Herman, Vadim and producer Karl Groom. See how they remixed the album.