A little more than two years after the reunion album 'The Art of Navigating by the Stars', which was received fantastically by the press, SIEGES EVEN released the follow-up 'Paramount' in autumn 2007. The songwriting had started directly after concerts in Russia (Moscow), Greece (Larissa and Athens) and a double headlining tour with DEADSOUL TRIBE. It was clear from the beginning that this album - the second with the new singer Arno Menses - would not be a concept album. Rather, the band put more emphasis on writing autonomous, partly shorter songs, which were not connected by any concept in terms of content. For the production they decided this time to work with Kristian 'Kohle' Kohlmannslehner, who had rather made his mark in the field of harder music. The production style was quite different from the work of Uwe Lulis on 'The Art of Navigating by the Stars': There, a lot of the material was recorded live and without clicktrack, whereas Kristian Kohlmannslehner focused more on precision and modern editing techniques. Without judging which approach is the better one, one can say that 'Paramount' sounds perhaps a bit punchier, more conducive to the somewhat altered songwriting and extremely transparent. The lyrical spectrum ranges from experiences on the mountain Corcovado in the urban area of Rio de Janeiro ('Iconic'), human hubris ('Paramount'), the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima ('Bridge to the Divine') to personal narratives ('Tidal' or 'Leftovers'). 'Paramount', like its predecessor, was very well received by the press. The band embarked on a European tour immediately following the release of the album in the fall of 2007 and played at the renowned 'ProgPowerEurope' festival in the Netherlands, among other venues. In 2008 followed a show at the 'Rock Hard'-Festival as well as three concerts in the support of the American AOR legend JOURNEY. The live album 'Playgrounds', released in spring 2008, documents the concerts of this tour. The stars were actually aligned favorably for SIEGES EVEN, so it was all the more surprising that the band's journey finally came to an end at the last of the three support shows for JOURNEY in Bamberg in the summer of 2008. "Paramount" was not available for many years and was only released on CD in 2007.
