Progressive power metal act ULTIMATIUM have released quite an array of content, spanning the last several years. Even now, working upon all new content, focusing on just this next release, and creating much more music for the coming years! See what else the band had to say all below.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Our band started originally as solo project, by Matti Pulkkinen, back in 2001. First two demos were with various vocalists but on third demo, we had one guy singing the whole Demo, JT Partanen. Around the same time, our guitarist Harri joined the group. With that crew + Tuomo Juntunen on the bass, we recoded our first full length album, New Dawn (2004), in Mastervox Studios. For the second album,. Hwainoo (2008), our current vocalist Tomi Viiltola stepped in for the vocals and Toni Qvick for the drums. After some time, Tuomo Juntunen left the band and was replaced by Mikko Hepo-Oja. Also we took 2nd guitarist to the band as well and we did one show and one EP with them. After some long term disagreements, all new members were asked to leave / left the band and me, Harri and Tomi continued with ourselves. Luckily we came across the multitalented Matti Auerkallio in the depths of internet and he agreed to play the drums to our 3rd album, Vis Vires Infinitus. Also for the album Juha Haipus joined for the bass. Vis Vires Infinitus was more progressive than the first two albums. For the fourth and our latest album, Virtuality (2020), we kind of went back to the roots of Ultimatium and we had five lead vocalists performing the prog power opera/theme album. Basses for the album was played by Petteri Gullsten.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
Origin is from my name, back in the days in Suomussalmi, Finland, there used to be saying “Ulti-Matti and his magical toyota”. Toyota was small, light blue hatchback and we used to cruise around the Suomussalmi with it and have fun. So when I started composing own songs back in 2000’s or something, I just combined the name Ulti-Matti to something more metallic ending, so if came out as Ultimatium. Back in the days, search engines were not so good, so I had no idea it was just one letter away from actual English word (and a band in usa), ultimatum, so that has caused bit of a confusion during the years.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
We’re bit all over Finland right now and as we are kind of “virtual” / “studio”-band, we don’t have a lot of collaboration with the rest of the scene. Obviously there’s a lot of great bands out there, let’s mention like Lost in Grey and Northern Equation, both from the vocalists that appear on Virtuality
4. How would you describe your style?
We’ve evolved during the years from classical power metal to more of a prog power nowadays.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
New Dawn, 2004, our first album, this was quite basic power metal, with some twists in the mid-parts Hwainoo, 2008, here we already went for bit darker shades at some points of the album at least, but still quite straightforward power metal Vis Vires Infinitus, 2015, people always say the third album is the hard one. Well, the album was not hard one, but getting there was :D So, this was more complex and not that direct album from us, yeah some power metal things as well, but it had a progressive elements as well. First album that we recorded completely by ourselves Virtuality, 2020, Like mentioned earlier, in this album we went full on prog power opera, and made a theme album, which I always wanted to write. There’s a lot more progressive themes in this album and long songs, so one should at least try to listen this as one piece. In general, people can expect lots of unexpected things from our albums and songs, we always to to shake things up so that the outcome would not sound generic.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
Yeah, we sure do. I don’t want to go to more details just yet, but there’s another ~60mins of prog power at works. We’ve had some, let’s say technical difficulties, that we want to make sure that are done with before releasing more details.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
Nah, we’re done with that. We used to make our songs so, that we would not “overdo” them so we could play them live, but since that’s gone now, we can concentrate on making the albums a lot more interesting and more full on.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
As the new album is at works, plans are to finish it, hopefully during this year and utilize a lot of AI to make videos of some songs. We’re releasing two new videos from Virtuality, one is premiering just now (3rd of January) and second on sometime mid-February
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
Easiest way to get to know us is probably our YouTube page:https://www.youtube.com/ultimatiummetal And for stuff to buy and more details, https://ulti.fi is a great place to start.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
I hope they remember the fast double kicks entwining to complex progressive themes and of course, great vocals. Greetings and happy new year to everyone from Matti Pulkkinen.
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