Dol Ammad is my first and most epic-grandiose music project to date. Through Dol Ammad I geek out envisioning endless space battles, sci-fi stories and generally feed my inner megalomania.

The idea behind Dol Ammad appeared to me in 2001. After 5-6 years of meddling with sounds and playing with local bands I started to form some decent structures and melodies that sounded quite original to my ears. These ideas featured extended use of synthesizers and sound effects mixed with a heavy/power metal core defined by distorted rhythm guitars and double bass drumming.

Since I never had the intentions of forming a typical rock/metal “band” and being a bit of a snob regarding lead singers, I had the thought of using a small choir ensemble for the vocals in the project. I always loved the sound of choirs and they fit perfectly to the aforementioned bombastic feelings that I was having for this project.

Thus Dol Ammad were officially born with our demo CD in 2002 and since then progress with every new release. Up to now we have released 4 full Dol Ammad albums and hope to keep evolving and reaching closer to the magic of the stars.

Released on the 10th of August 2018, “Astroatlas” is the fourth full Dol Ammad album and the second and closing chapter of the “Cosmic Gods” space-metal saga.

“Astroatlas” feels a bit more diverse than “Hyperspeed”. Somehow more “exploratory” compared to the “pure power” that the first episode focused on.

Episode II features themes of epic space fights for the hidden artifact known as the “Astroatlas”, an artifact containing knowledge of cosmic magnitude. There are songs about a mysterious temple predicting these future wars, planet crushing meteor showers, the existential awakening of machines, biobombs, cryo-travel and more.

I feel that “Hyperspeed” and “Astroatlas” complement each other perfectly. Like two brothers, the two episodes were meant to be together. They were composed and some parts were even recorded during the same period of time.

This is my first full album that will have a digital-only release. Current financial struggles, paired with the undeniable global shift towards the digital streaming of music, make physical formats not a viable option for my releases anymore.

The masterpiece of John Williams through the unique Dol Ammad space metal style of bombastic sound design and epic classical choirs.

The “Duel of the Fates” soundtrack was composed for the 1999 movie “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” and has now become one of the most iconic Star Wars music themes.

This cover song was one of most complicated music productions I have ever done and we have worked on it for more than a year. It has been a dream of mine for so long, “Duel of the Fates” was in fact one of my main inspirations and reasons to form Dol Ammad back in the early 2000’s.

“Omniversal God” is a bonus track from the “Hyperspeed” album and it is available for free download to all subscribers of the Lightbridge Newsletter.

This is a special remix of the track “Hyperspeed” using only sounds and instruments from the Rob Papen eXplorer II collection. It is available for free download to all subscribers of the Lightbridge Newsletter.

Released in 2012, “Hyperspeed” feels as my most complete Dol Ammad record clearly defining the emotions I want to express with this project. Having released 2 Dol Theeta CDs and since our previous Dol Ammad CD came out way back in 2006, I had tons of inner energy that I wanted to unlock. As I started exploring my ideas and developing the material I quickly realized that this will be a 2-part release under the same concept as I had gathered way too much material for one album to produce.

The concept behind Cosmic Gods is that of the existence of two hidden powers in the universe and the conflicting battles between various space tribes in their struggle to acquire them and eventually become the…(insert epic voice here)…GODS OF THE COSMOS! The first power is that of “Hyperspeed” and it is hidden in Mercurian stones. The album features also warriors from Titan attacking and annihilating enemy races and planets (Titan Warriors / Xenocide), an immortal magician diving into the molten core of the Sun (Magus Invicta), a tribe of Phobos miners seeing an apparition informing them of their imminent death (Caravan of Mars) and much more happy space madness.

Released only in digital format in 2010, “Winds Of The Sun” is a special EP featuring 5 very diverse songs. The highlight of the EP is of course the self-titled single “Winds Of The Sun” which was the second song we recorded with DC Cooper when he was in my studio doing his guest vocals in “Ocean Dynamics”. After doing a classic power/speed cooperation in “Aquatic Majesty”, I wanted to work with the amazingly emotional aspects of DC Cooper’s voice so I composed this cosmic ballad that served also as a tribute to my greatest hero, Carl Sagan.

The EP features remixes and also a cover version of Amorphis’ “Black Winter Day”, a song (and an album – “Tales From the Thousand Lakes”) that was a great inspiration when I was starting to discover more extreme and unorthodox structures in metal music. For various reasons and although only digital, “Winds Of The Sun” gave me a very hard time trying to release it. Both the legal aspects needed for doing my first cover song and other crappy stuff in my life slowed me down and thus I am left with a kind of a bitter-sweet taste every time I think about it.

Released in 2006, “Ocean Dynamics” is the second Dol Ammad album. Its aquatic theme and concept emit very deep and rather atmospheric feelings and I am very happy with the ambiences I’ve created in it. Compared to “Star Tales” it’s big steps ahead mainly in the production side of things. The choir recordings were upgraded with the biggest choir I had recorded so far (14 members), I invited drummer Alex Holzwarth to my studio in Thessaloniki and also had the honor to work with the talented DC Cooper who flew from Pittsburgh to my home town for his guest vocals in “Aquatic Majesty”.

It was a very busy 2005, I remember we were working one and a half year full time for this album. In June 2006 I was obliged to join the Greek army and was very sad that the CD was released while I was serving my time there and didn’t enjoy it as much as I would like to. It was also the first CD released from my personal label electronicARTmetal Records and had tons of new things to sort both in my mind and business-wise. Thankfully I am very proud with the result and excited because it was at that time that I fully realized my need to create more music projects and explore other aspects of sound and composition which would begin with Dol Theeta the next years.

Released in 2004, “Star Tales” is my debut Dol Ammad CD and my first foray into the music business. Featuring re-recorded versions of all the songs that had appeared in our 2002 demo CD and together with new compositions the final result has a “space-party” feel. On one hand the excitement of my first release and on the other my immaturity at the time resulted in an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach in the compositions. Tons of elements, riffs, melodies, sounds added together to a “wall-of-sound” production.

Of course the highlight for me was the journey I took in Wolfsburg Germany back in 2003 for the drum recordings of Alex Holzwarth in the “Gate” Studios. Apart from Alex, meeting with musicians Robert Hunecke, Sascha Paeth, Olaf Reitmeier and Miro was a beautiful experience. The ill-fated signing with Black Lotus Records to release the album also felt great at the time.