2011
2011 marks Italian power metal pioneers Labyrinth's 20 Year Anniversary and the band celebrates the occasion with the release of the restrospective album 'As Time Goes By...', containing their classics plus 2 bonus tracks, the acoustic version of ‘A Midnight Autumn's Dream’ and the cover version of Yngwie Malmsteen’s ‘You Don't Remember and I'll Never Forget’. February 24th 2011 saw the band embarking on a full European tour with Finnish power metallers Sonata Arctica.
2010
Produced by Olaf Thorsen himself and Labyrinth and mastered by Mika Jussila at renowned Finnvox Studios, Helsinki (Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, HIM), 'Return To Heaven Denied Pt.2 - A Midnight Autumn's Dream' is without doubt the album that every fan of powerful and melodic music was waiting for and has already been described as a powerful, technically challenging and melodically enthralling piece of music, conceived to be the continuation of their much celebrated masterpiece ‘Return To Heaven Denied’ (1998), still considered by fans and media alike as a real Power Metal classic. Cover artwork was held by Nerve Design (Threshold, Nile, Legion Of The Damned, Vision Divine). The album will be out June 21st 2010.
2009
Former guitarist Olaf Thorsen rejoined the band and the revitalised line-up expresses the desire to go back to their musical roots by working on 'Return To Heaven Denied Pt.2'
2007
Labyrinth signed a new deal with Scarlet Records for the release of their sixth album ‘6 Days To Nowhere’. The album was mastered at renowned Abbey Road Studios in London, UK, and displayed the band's usual high musical standards and innovative ideas. A stunning cover version of Beatles’ classic ‘Come Together’ was also included in the final tracklist.
2006
Bassist Cristiano Bertocchi left the band to join Vision Divine and singer Roberto Tiranti started handling bass duties along with vocals.
2005
Labyrinth released a new full-length album, "Freeman", on March 2005, in which they showed more aggressive riffs and melodic parts at the same time.
For both Italian and Japanese releases, there’s a normal version and one with a bonus DVD.
The guys played a great tour in Italy (17 shows) and supported Dream Theater & Angra for 3 gigs (21-23 June), then took part at the Metal Way Festival (14 August) in Gernika-Bilbao with big bands such as Manowar, Saxon, Accept, Motorhead, WASP and more
2004
Labyrinth celebrated 10 years of career and started writing the new album. Pier Gonella joined the band as the 6th official member. A fantastic tour of Asia took place in May, with gigs in Japan, Taiwan and China. After some gigs in Italy, Labyrinth played in Slovakia at More Then Fest 2004 with good bands like Lost Horizons, Destruction and Freedom Call.
On December 9th the guys played an important show at famous Camden Underworld in London, UK, with Dream Evil. It was a fantastic night full of true metal-atmosphere.
One week later Labyrinth signed a deal with Arise Records.
2003
The clear and sharp recording of the new demo procured them three of the most important deals of their career: Century Media Records for Europe and Americas, V2 for Italy and King Records for Japan. In January 2003 Labyrinth began the recording for the new album simply titled "Labyrinth". It was recorded at Noise Factory in Milan (Italy), and it was mastered at House Of Audio in Germany, and this gave an incredible power to the album. In the meantime the problems with the old Italian label were smoothed out.
Roberto Tiranti took part in the musical The Ten Commandments which was a supplement to his activity as Labyrinth singer until the beginning of the year 2004. The release of "Labyrinth", initially fixed for June 30th , was postponed in Italy to July the 4th.
The following step after the release of the album was finding another good guitarist for the live dates. The guys found in Pier Gonella, old friend of Roberto and Andrea De Paoli, the perfect union of speed and technique. The first show with Pier was the IX Agglutination Metal Festival in Chiaromonte (PZ), where Labyrinth would have been the 3rd band, before Vader and Virgin Steele.
Just after summer 2003, they began the preparation for the live shows to support the new album: The Maze On Tour 2003/04.
2002
The band organized, in March 2002, the ‘Italian Attack’ tour. Domine, White Skull, Skylark, Novembre and Centurion where the other bands on the bill.
The songwriting for the new album took place in May of the same year and in the meantime Olaf Thorsen left the band to join Vision Divine, whereas Mat Stancioiu (Mattia Stancioiu) and Andrew McPauls (Andrea De Paoli) left Vision Divine to dedicate themselves completely to Labyrinth.
In July 2002 the first demo of the new Labyrinth album was ready. The bandmates decided for the first time to use their Italian names: Andrea Cantarelli (Anders Rain) - guitar, Roberto Tiranti (Rob Tyrant) - vocals, Andrea De Paoli (Andrew McPauls) - keyboards, Cristiano Bertocchi (Chris Breeze) - bass, and Mattia Stancioiu (Mat Stancioiu) - drums.
2001
With such a great response the band organized an Italian tour in February 2001 with support band Sigma (ex Love Machine), and then a long European tour, supporting Helloween first and then, with Nocturnal Rites, supporting Iron Savior.
2000
The band entered the recording studio again to release the new full-length LP "Sons Of Thunder". To support the new album, the band played the most important European festivals, like Wacken Open Air 2000 and Rock Machina 2000 (Spain), gaining indescribable success.
At the end of August 2000 "Sons Of Thunder" flew at number 52 of the Japanese chart and at the 26 of the Italian chart. Such good results were rewarded with the request for a tour in South America with Vision Divine.
1999
In the meantime Rob Tyrant (Roberto Tiranti) rejoined the band, replacing Morby and singing with Labyrinth in the most important European heavy metal festivals (Gods of Metal, Dynamo and more).
1998
Shortly after the release of the new record singer Rob Tyrant (Roberto Tiranti) left the band, being replaced by Morby from Domine who led Labyrinth throughout the whole European tour as supporting act, with Pegazus, of Hammerfall and Primal Fear. After a while an Italian Tour with Heimdall followed.
After a short break the band entered the recording studio to release the new Mini CD "Timeless Crime", containing new hits and old tracks from the first demo tape "Midnight Resistance" and LPs "No Limits" and "Return To Heaven Denied".
1997
Frank Andiver - drums and Ken Taylor - keyboards left the band and the new vocalist Rob Tyrant (Roberto Tiranti), drummer Mat Stancioiu (Mattia Stancioiu) and keyboard player Andrew McPauls (Andrea De Paoli) joined the band. In the meantime some of the most important big metal labels showed a deep interest on the band's new demo and finally Metal Blade made the best offer and the deal was signed! It took six months to record the second album "Return To Heaven Denied" and before its release the band took part to summer 1998's metal main event: "Gods Of Metal", together with some of heavy metal biggest acts such as Black Sabbath, Pantera, Helloween, Blind Guardian and Stratovarius. "Return To Heaven Denied" was a success among fans and metal magazines and it gave a strong impulse not only to the career of the band, but also to the whole Italian metal scene, that recognized Labyrinth as the new sensation of the moment.
1995
"No Limits" was released and the interest on the band got higher and higher among metal kids and independent labels. The popularity of the band increased not only in mother land and in Europe, but also overseas (Japan, Korea, Brasil), where some labels (Teichiku for Japan) offered to deal the record out. The band stayed in the metal magazine "Burrn!" top ten charts for almost six months.
Joe Terry (Fabio Tordiglione), the lead singer, left the band to join Rhapsody later on.
1994
The band managed to release the first demo "Midnight Resistance" that is now a cult-item among the fans. The demo got enthusiastic reviews on major metal magazines in Italy and Germany and that gave the band the chance to sign with Underground Symphony, a new-born indie label.
Andrea Bartoletti - bass left the band and Chris Breeze (Cristiano Bertocchi) joined the band.
It was the year of "Piece Of Time", their first EP, that marked the direction the band was taking: pure melodic speed metal with a keyboards-background that fascinates the Italian and German underground metal scene. It was the first step towards the release of a full-lenght LP.
1991
The original line-up got together in 1991 Frank Andiver - drums, Andrea Bartoletti - bass guitar, Andrea Cantarelli - lead guitar, Carlo Andrea Magnani - lead guitar, Fabio Tordiglione - vocals. |