Astronomica

Astronomica is the album Crimson Glory released in 1999. In the United States it was manufactured and marketed by Spitfire Records, and the back cover states that it was issued under licence from Interstaller Records, Inc. The booklet's thanks name the record companies that helped bring the album out: Rising Sun Records in Germany, N.T.S. Records in France, Spitfire Records in the United States and King Records in Japan. The band is a five-piece here, with Wade Black on vocals, Jon Drenning and Ben Jackson on guitars, Jeff Lords on bass and Steve Wacholz on drums, and the thanks list welcomes Jackson back and Wacholz aboard. Drenning produced, engineered and mixed the album, with Lords credited as co-producer and Mitch Goldfarb credited with additional pre-production. It was recorded and mixed at Dreamland in Anna Maria, Florida, on a Mackie console and two Roland VS-880 eight-track digital recorders, and Michael Fuller mastered it at Fullersound in Miami. David Van Landing, who had sung on the band's American tour in 1991, adds backing vocals together with Paul Beach. Drenning also handled the art direction and design, and Gene Pollux took the photographs. The opening "March to Glory" is credited in the booklet to Enya's "Boadicea". After the lyrics of the closing "Cydonia", the booklet prints a short passage by Carl Sagan that refers to Cydonia as the Martian sphinx. The American credits also list a recording of a 911 call from Trumbull County, which is heard as a hidden track after "Cydonia". In Germany, Rising Sun Productions issued the album as a two-disc set limited to 5,000 copies, its second disc holding three songs recorded live at the Manatee Civic Center in Bradenton, Florida, on 2 September 1989. Wade Black went on to play the European tour that followed the album.