Intense

There are at least four artist with the name Intense: a drum and bass act, a metal band from Latvia, a metal band from Italy, and an industrial metal band from Hungary. 1.- Intense (Beau Thomas, Dan Duncan, Simon Vispi) was one of the most archetypical sounds attached to the good days of Good Looking Records (though they recorded for other labels): moody breaks, melancholic synths, smooth progression and, sometimes, a sax provided by Molly Duncan.

1.- Intense (Beau Thomas, Dan Duncan, Simon Vispi) was one of the most archetypical sounds attached to the good days of Good Looking Records (though they recorded for other labels): moody breaks, melancholic synths, smooth progression and, sometimes, a sax provided by Molly Duncan. Though they have not released many tunes, the ones that appear in the many Good Looking/Looking Good compilations (specially Logical Progression 3, which has an a-side consisting of them Live) show that they were among the most talented of all, and maybe the ones with the most sense of melody.

2. - INTENSE ( Metal / Thrash / Death Metal band from Riga, Latvia)
In year of 2006., in Riga met three people Olegs Malorodovs (lead guitarist), Valentins Kudrjavcevs (ex-bass player) and Viesturs Vanags (drummer) from different towns of Latvia with one major target- make some music. Going through about 2 years of rehesaling, learning songs from other bands like Pantera, Metallica, Megadeth etc. and searching for the rest of the band members, finaly they found Arturs (vocals) and Janis Preiss (rythm guitarist) and the band officialy has been established in 3. dec. 2008. After some months of rehersaling and live performaces they changed the bass player Valentins Kudravcevs to Viesturs's early-day band member, bass player Inguss Andersons, cause of major disagreements in the music making. So, and now on the band have been performed in many night clubs of Latvia like Depo (Riga), Melna Piektiena (Riga), Fontane Palace (Liepaja) etc. together with bands like Sliver (FRA); Cilice (NL); Checkpoint Charlie (Hungary); Kingdom (USA); Rhinoceros (USA) and many more other local bands!

3. - Intense released their first full length album Second Sight in mid 2004 on Italy's Underground Symphony label; 'SS' was also licensed to NTS Records for France only, Century Media handled distro in the US.

2004 saw Intense's first venture overseas with 2 club shows in Germany before playing the Metal Bash near Hamburg. Highlight of the 2004 tour was the bands opening of the main stage at Bloodstock on the Saturday, warming the crowd up for bands such as Primal Fear, Evergrey, Sonata Arctica and Children of Bodom among others. Despite an 11.55am start the band packed out the venue and gained much critical acclaim for their live performance.

The band's first video, (for the song "War of Angels") saw inclusion on the Bloodstock Compilation DVD, "The New Blood of British Metal". The Video gained TV airplay being shown regularly on Scuzz TV. Following on from the success of Bloodstock, the band won an online poll of bands that Bloodstock fans would like to see play Bloodstock Open Air 2005; Intense came through a group stage, a semi and the Final, beating the 11 other bands in the process.

2005 Saw Intense continue playing further shows in support of their Second Sight album with Festival appearances like the first ever 13th Day Festival in Birmingham UK, playing alongside, Sonata Arctica, Finntroll, Norther, Epica and Dragonland among others. They also played the first ever Dominion Festival in Hull alongside Skyclad, Human Fortress and a host of UK talent, as well as Germany's Dong Open Air Festival with Skyclad, Elvenking etc.

To the bands surprise they became the UK's entrant in the Heavy Metal Eurovision song contest and from 41 entries were placed 7th. Despite limited promotion Second Sight gained critical acclaim from all over the planet and most reviews can be found on the bands website.

2006 Saw the band again enter Thin Ice Studios to record album no. 2 with Karl Groom of Threshold producing; Karl's band mate Richard West was also enlisted this time round to handle vocal production and also provide keyboards. The album was mastered at Fine Tune studios in Holland and artwork was this time provided by the world renowned Mattias Nor?n who has worked with Evergrey, Jag Panzer, Kamelot, Epica and more.

The band got to play the pre-show party for the first ever Prog Power UK, along with friends Power Quest and Israel's Orphaned Land. After a short tour of Germany, Holland and Belgium in Nov 06 the band began talks with Napalm Records and signed a multi album deal with the label in Jan 2007, making them Napalms first UK signing.

"As Our Army Grows" shows how the bands playing and writing abilities have matured since Second Sight and was released March / April worldwide. A video for "Fear is Not Enough" was shot early in 2007 and has been featured on various covermounts including Rock Hard in Germany, as well as all good Metal channels. Napalm's promotion campaign saw the band handle over 100 interviews with magazines and media across the world. Though 2007 proved to be fairly quiet on the live front and saw the band lose out on a highly anticipated support slot, they still had shows with Dream Evil, Onslaught, Leatherwolf and Skyclad among other and also played the Headbanger's Open Air Festival in Germany.

4. - Intense (industrial metal / modern metal band from Buda?rs, Hungary)
The band was formed in 1996 from the ashes of the grindcore band INTENSE AGONIZING.

Line-up:

G?bor Kiss - vocals
Lajos Lal?tka - guitars
Norbert Schultz - samplers
S?ndor Nagy - drums
?kos Draskoba - bass

They released a demo and two full-length album:
1996 - Indifference
1997 - Black Dawn
1998 - Darkest Space

After their split up in 2000 Lajos Lal?tka continued on in industrial band Space Monkeez