February 2018 sees the release of the rerecorded/rewritten version of Nergard’s debut album Memorial For A Wish through Battlegod Productions.

Nergard explains the decision to rewrite the material:

“May 2010: A head full of dreams, an impressive budget and a desire to create something grandiose. The writing of my debut album Memorial For A Wish had begun, a dream was about to become reality. This particular dream was to write an album featuring some of the artists that had been monumental inspirational sources to me from my childhood years and up until then. Now was the time to take action and make these ideas come to life. Positive feedback from three amazing singers; Göran Edman, Åge Sten Nilsen and Tony Mills really kick started the writing. I couldn’t believe that I actually was going to work with some of my childhood heroes, people that had lead me onto the musical path in which I still am today. I was so eager to get the album finished I could hardly wait. However, it would take three long years before the album would see its release. Why? Memorial For A Wish was a hard earned experience in how not to make an album and how to throw away precious time and money. An experience I benefited on when writing and recording the follow up A Bit Closer To Heaven. It was the first ‘professional’ album I ever wrote and recorded. I was inexperienced and didn’t quite know how to embark on that mission. Besides writing some songs that I am very proud of I didn’t manage to create half of what I wanted with that album, it became a shadow off the original idea. The task simply became too big to pull through with the little experience I had at the time.

“Spending three years on that album would have been justified if the product was great but the product wasn’t great. In fact it was far from that. It was something that I almost felt ashamed of from the very day I got the mastertape. It was something that I couldn’t get myself to show to those involved. I could imagine myself sending the album to my heroes Göran, Ralf, Michele ++ saying:’“hey, check out the mess of a record I made with your vocals on it.’ It wasn’t the songs that bothered me. The songs obviously needed some improvement, which they got on this rerecording, but I would never have revisited this album if it wasn’t for the poor recordings ... and the mix, which felt both right and wrong at the time. A lot of the recordings didn’t have good enough quality and much of it was not very tight played. It made the overall sound very chaotic, too many melodies/riffs etc. intertwining at the same time. There was a lot gone wrong with the actual recording but at the end of the day it was the mix that bothered me enough to make me want to rerecord it. One can only speculate on why I even decided to release the album back then. Being inexperienced and working on this album for so many years eventually made me a little blind and tired. I needed to get that album out of my head and start working on something different. After its release the album launched Nergard on a small but expanding platform that has been making a great foundation so far, for which I am very grateful, much of it thanks to the great promotional work done by my label Battlegod Productions. There was lot of positive reviews and it made me happy off course but I knew that it could be ten times better than what it had become. I guess many will say that it is a waste of time going back to re-record an album that is only four years old, but I strongly felt that for the sake of the songs and the performances from the guest artists that put their mark on this product and expected professional quality I had to do the album all over again. I also felt that this was something that needed to be done before any new music was released. Pete at Battlegod Productions gave me the thumb up and I went straight ahead working on it.

“The only things kept of the original recordings are the once delivered by the guest singers and some guitar solos. The rest of it are done all over again, guitar/drums/bass/keyboards etc. New guitar solos, new guest singers, even two completely new songs made out of one of the old ones. Every song got some big or minor changes during the rewriting, I even changed the title on some of them. When rewriting the album I got the chance to cut away pointless parts of music that crippled the songs instead of pushing them forward, especially the long ones. The opening track ‘Twenty Years In Hell’ is left out of the new version. I really loved that track because of its dark, storytelling atmosphere but in the big picture it only left people in confusion. It was written in the stages when the project were supposed to be a heavy metal musical but unfortunately/fortunately did not follow up with the same vibe on the other tracks. That decision made the song stand out as a weird loner on the album. Instead of having that track on the album, ‘The Haunted’ from my debut EP The Beginning, will take its place in a new version with female vocals on it. I’m extremely proud of the new Memorial For A Wish and can’t wait to let you hear this monster.

"One should not forget the past though. I don’t rerecord this album to bury the old one. Old and new will be united on this release as a double album, the old one attached as a demo version and some extra tracks. Release date, full track list and the new guest singers will be revealed very soon. Below you can find the ones that are already on the album.”

Memorial For A Wish lineup:

Drums/bass/keyboards: Andreas Nergård
Rhythm guitars: Henrik Karlsvik & Ørjan Halsan
Vocals: Göran Edman (ex-Yngwie Malmsteen) 
Vocals: Mike Vescera (ex-Yngwie Malmsteen)
Vocals: Nils K. Rue (Pagan’s Mind) Vocals: Åge Sten Nilsen (Wig Wam)
Vocals: Andi Kravljaca (Aeon Zen, Thaurorod)
Vocals: Tony Mills (ex-TNT, ex-Shy)
Vocals: Michele Luppi (Whitesnake)
Vocals: David Reece (ex-Accept)
Guitar solo: Helge Engelke (Fair Warning)
Guitar solo: Stig Nergård (Tellus Requiem)