The Sons of Odin

Announced as the band's first-ever EP, it was scheduled for release on 6 October 2006 in Germany, on 13 October in the rest of Europe and on 24 October in North America. It came out on the band's own label, Magic Circle Music, with distribution by SPV. Explaining the choice of format, Joey DeMaio said that an EP let the band give its fans far more audio and video in one package than a single could. In the early hours of 6 October, the announced German release day, the band held a "virtual release party", streaming the whole EP in a loop on its official site. The EP holds five tracks. The title song "The Sons of Odin", the title track of the following year's album Gods of War and the new song "Odin" are all marked "Immortal Version", the last described as an orchestral version. These three were recorded and produced in the band's studio, Hell, and mixed by Ronald Prent at Galaxy Studios in Belgium. "The Ascension" and "King of Kings" were recorded live at Earthshaker Fest 2005 and mixed by Rich Breen. DeMaio wrote every song, the line-up was Eric Adams, Karl Logan, DeMaio and Scott Columbus, and Ken Kelly painted the cover. Beside the regular jewel-case CD there was a limited "Immortal Package": a six-panel digipak in a slipcase with a bonus DVD holding a short version of a fan convention documentary, a rehearsal of "Heart of Steel" in the Czech Republic with full orchestra and choir, a trailer for the Live at Earthshaker Fest 2005 DVD and 5.1 mixes of the five tracks. The EP reached No. 18 on the Finnish singles chart but did not enter the German Top 100. The album Gods of War, which takes up songs from it, followed in February 2007.