Lars Eric "Lasse" Mattsson is a guitarist, songwriter and producer living in Godby, Åland, Finland. Career Initially influenced by the classic hard rock of the late 60s and 70s like Jimi Hendrix, Richie Blackmore, Johnny Winter but also Al DiMeola, Mattsson later became one of the early developers of the neoclassical metal genre. Mattsson was discovered by Mike Varney (Guitar Player Magazine and Shrapnel Records) in 1985. After playing and touring with various local hard rock bands Mattsson recorded and released the 4 track vinyl EP “Can’t Go On Without Your Love” in 1987. Soon after this Mattsson signed to Black Dragon Records, a French indie label for which he recorded 3 albums Eternity (1988), No Surrender (1989), and the all-instrumental Electric Voodoo (1991). Eternity and No Surrender were released in Japan by FEMS, while the instrumental Electric Voodoo was picked up by Leviathan Records in the USA and released under the Title “The Exciter” in 1992, and then in 1995, it was released in Asia by SKC. In 1992 Mattsson teamed up with Swedish singer Conny Lind who had been in Los Angeles working with Alex Masi and together with drummer Tony Mattsson and Bass player Michael Ahlskog they formed the band 'Vision' and recorded 1992's album 'Lars Eric Mattsson's Vision'. The year after Vision recorded a follow-up album, which was never released due to the label's coming bankruptcy and the band eventually split up. Around 1994 when Mattsson was playing in cover bands doing blues classics and Hendrix covers he got in contact with another Swedish singer, Björn Lodin, who had released some albums with his own band Baltimore. As the band split up Björn joined forces with Lars and recorded the 1995's album 'Astral Groove', which was blues-based and quite different from Mattsson's previous releases. However, the band split up too soon and Mattsson was considering quitting music completely for a while. In 1996 Lars wanted to give 'Vision' a second chance and recorded the album 'Till the End of Time' which was his most laid-back melodic- almost AOR - release ever. The album got very good reactions and was living proof that melodic hard rock still had an audience. Singer Randolph Reymers made his debut as lead singer after having sung backing vocals on several albums before Vision. In the autumn 1999 Lars began writing for another album and invited some friends and musicians to guest