German progressive metallers VANDEN PLAS have finished writing new 15 songs and are planning on recording 10 of them for their upcoming album, tentatively due in early 2005. In addition, the band are working on a rock musical entitled "Monte Cristo". The new VANDEN PLAS album will also be based on this topic.

Commented guitarist Stephan Lill: "First we wanted to do an album called 'Monte Cristo', which should have been kind of a rock musical. But after a while we realized that it would be very hard to find a good solution regarding the songwriting. If the songs are too hard, no one in the theater-scene would listen to them. If they are too soft, our fans could be a bit irritated. At the end we felt limited in both ways. So we decided to make a regular VANDEN PLAS album (based on Monte Cristo) and a musical (called 'Monte Cristo'). This way we are free to write some heavy stuff and in the same way we are free to write theater-like songs which aren't heavy at all. That's the best solution for us, and hopefully nobody will be disappointed!

"The musical will star different singers. Hopefully it will be played at a theater someday, but right now I don't even know if it will ever be recorded because that would be a big challenge. We just started the songwriting of the musical, and if you think about what is necessary to create a musical, you can imagine that it will take a longer time to realize that. Anyway, for the moment our regular CD is the most important thing, we have to finish that first."

In other news, VANDEN PLAS singer Andy Kuntz will release the debut album from his solo project, ABYDOS, on August 30 through InsideOut Music. Entitled "Abydos: The Little Boy's Heavy Mental Shadow Opera About The Inhabitants Of His Diary" (view cover here), the CD will feature the following track listing:

01. The Inhabitants Of His Diary
02. You Broke The Sun
03. Silence
04. Far Away From Heaven
05. Coppermoon (The Other Side)
06. Hyperion Sunset
07. God's Driftwood
08. Radio Earth
09. Abydos
10. Green's Guidance For A Stategy Adventure Game
11. Wildflowersky
12. A Boy Named Fly

Audio samples can currently be downloaded at this location.

ABYDOS' music is said to be "inspired by the spirit of progressive rock music of the Seventies." Songwriting for the album was completed by Kuntz, Stephan Glass and Michael Krauss. Glass had previously worked on the recording of the acoustic VANDEN PLAS album "AcCult" and was the band's sound engineer on the European tour with ANGRA. VANDEN PLAS drummer Andreas Lill also appears on the CD.

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