History Taiga, woodmetal from the forest: The band was founded in 1998 as a band (like so many other bands) consisting of young musicians with strong passion for the heavy music of the 80:s. To begin with, it was'nt much to talk about musically. Members joined and left, leaving the three founders Jonas Lagander (guitar), Per-Henrik Lundberg (guitar) and Erik Wibrant (bass) in a quite lonly and desperate state. It was'nt until drummer Hampus Landin and singer Mattias Wetterhall joined that things started to work out for Taiga. Both of them are/were natural talents and very skillfull. The "new" band's first demo release "A Thrill For A Kill" saw light of day with a little help from Jocke Göthberg (Marduk, Dimension Zero) who took care of the recording. The response from those, very few, who heard it was very positive. But soon after the release Mattias left the band and ones again Taiga stood without a complete lineup. Two demos followed within the timeelapse of two years. On the first one a friend of Hampus sang but she was'nt into the music at all. She was just into Hampus. Anyway the songs on that demo was called "The beauty wich nature did provide" and "No Angel's Crying". The last "pre-period demo" - containing the songs "Where the partridge live" and "Under the yoke of a veil" - was sung by Hampus and Jonas. They growled and strangeled a couple of cute innocent kitties in front of the mic and it sounded all awful. Now they are both taking singing lessons to prevent such horrifing creations in the future. The music of those two just previous mentioned demos was'nt much to talk about. The band did'nt know how it wanted to sound like. The capability was there but it was just a time of confusion and uncertainty. On the summer of 2000, Jonas injuried his left arm and was'nt able to play guitar for months. But when he started to heal up he had to play very careful, not to hurt himself again. And then he came up with some very simpel riffs that sounded like nothing the band had played before. Very inspired by various folkmusic acts that Jonas had been into for, by then, quite a long time. The other members liked it and a new path was entered by the band. On spring 2001 a demo consisting of the songs "Brocken's Peak" and "Twittering Hybris" was recorded. The singing was taken care of by Jonas five years younger sister Sigrid who agreed to help out. It was a tremendous success! Not that it brought the band a recordeal or something like that, but it became a model. A recorded pattern for Taigas new genuine sound. Musically no more obstacles lay ahead. Taiga was free to explore what few had seen before. After a couple of gigs with singer Hanna, a great singer and a great person who, sadly enough, had to be fired due to her voice which did'nt fit the bands vision. She sounded all to much "MTV". Sigrid was later taken in as permanent member and a demo consisting of the songs "Mist" and "The Hovel's Song" was recorded in autumn the same year. After that, people started to take notice about the band. Taiga was'nt just one of all the other "hobbymetalbands" anymore. It was a band with clear potential. And that's why Jonas, Per-Henrik and Hampus decided to let bassist Erik Wibrant go. A sad chapter in the history of Taiga. Technically Erik was way behind the other members and they felt that they should do better of as a quartet. So P-H bought himself a nice woodcoloured jazzbass for a bargain (he had played bass for years in other constellations and sideprojekts), Jonas prepared himself for the challenge of being the only guitarist and Hampus made some changes in his calender, all in all for the band's advantage. Soon the four musicians started to work with some new exiting material. Taiga was stronger then it had ever been before, on all four fronts!