Norway's IN VAIN have issued the following update:

"Sorry for the lack of updates lately. We have been very busy in the studio and with other things and simply not had the time or motivation to update this site..

We have recorded 8 brand new songs, re-recorded 'In Remembrance' (but that will not be on the official CD) and one cover song. Most likely the CD will only consist of 7 songs + the cover song, so that means we will have to exclude a song. Not an easy choice... As usual we brought along some guests, although not as many as on The Latter Rain. More info on that later. You can check out a studio report with one of the guests here.

The lineup has changed and (guitarist) Even (Fuglestad) is out of the band. Knowing he has told his side of the story I will tell mine, but try to keep it respectful.

Before the whole recording started Even was almost kicked out of the band because he was impossible to reach for several months and it makes sense to say it was not an ideal situation when you try to prepare for a recording (which is not something that happens every year)... The reason he was not kicked out is that the recording would have been impossible to carry through for me playing all the guitar parts alone. It would simply have been too much to learn in too short time. I was spending all my spare time writing, rearranging, etc music even after the whole recording had started. So, Even was supposed to play more guitar than me, in order for me to focus on the song writing and arrangements. Without going into details, let's just say he had big problems in the studio. In addition he spent a lot of time recording and when he was finally done we discovered he had actually forgot to record a substantial amount of music (!).. Harsh words were spoken and he quit.

This is not meant as an excuse, but just to put things a little into perspective. The chosen words were too harsh and things should have been said in a different way. But I was tired of unprofessionalism and on top of it all the recording process had been everything but ideal.. Also, I barely slept those days because I was in the studio all day and had to work in the night, and in such mood I easily get grumpy.. Anyway, In Vain today is closer to its ultimate composition that what it was..

We are not sure in what form we will continue in the future. We will also discuss whether we will continue to play live and try to recreate the music from the CDs, which is a very hard task. For the new songs we have not exactly made it easy for ourselves when trying to play it live, because there are too many things going on at the same time. Anyway, maybe we'll go "all in" and get more people to play and have the rest of the music on tapes. That's the only way we can give recreate the CDs and I believe that's what people want to hear and not a "live version" of the songs. If not we'll just let it be and keep In Vain a studio project."