Janne Pennanen and Ville Skön from Finnish metal band Shiver have posted the following lengthy message on the band's MySpace page:

"Music and creating music are usually pleasant and joyful things, but unfortunately this is not always true. The joy was killed for us last spring, when a series of downhearting events occurred.
But let us start from the beginning, so you all will know exactly what happened.

In the beginning of the year 2006, we were searching for a vocalist for our band, and got numerous inquiries from many people. One of these people was Rick Altzi from Sweden. He was one of the noteworthy candidates, but was not chosen for the job.

We sent one of our songs to each of those who contacted us, so they could make their own interpretations of the lyrics and the vocal melody. Rick went through this procedure like everyone else. The song was called Shiver even before the search for a vocalist began.

When Rick found out he was not chosen, he told us he had already played the song to Olaf Lenk, guitarist of At Vance. Olaf asked for our permission to play the song Shiver for the record company of At Vance.

We did not grant permission for this, but told them they were allowed to play the version recorded with our chosen new vocalist.

Later on, Rick mentioned that they had not played the song to other people, respecting our wish.

A year passed peacefully, until a bomb dropped. Rick Altzi had joined At Vance as their vocalist, and they were releasing a new album.

Ville, a current member of our band Shiver, heard a familiar chorus as he was listening to the radio one day. This launched a series of unfortunate events, and we still don't know how it all will end.

The chorus played on the radio was from an At Vance song, titled Shiver. The song was almost the same we had sent to vocalist applicants in early 2006. It had gone through some changes by At Vance, but the song structure as well as the chord progressions are exactly the same as in the song Shiver we wrote in 2005.

The vocal melodies and lyrics used by Rick are exactly the same than those he recorded for us when applying for a vocalist. He naturally has the right to use these, but this only shows both of the songs are the same.

We contacted At Vance's record company via e-mail and told them what had happened. Their reply told us that At Vance is responsible for their own material, as dictated by their record deal.

The next thing to do was contacting the musicians in At Vance directly. We didn't need much imagination to guess their reply. At Vance naturally denied every connection between the two songs, and claimed that the guitarist/composer Olaf had never even heard the original song by us. Quite miraculously he could compose a song similar to ours, based on just the vocal melody. Even the solo and it's backing are almost identical to our original song. And all this based on just the vocal melody. Wonders never cease.

Members of At Vance seem to have forgotten what Rick told us in our previous e-mail conversations with him. Fortunately we have saved all of those emails.

We have not been in contact with the band ever since. The reason for not bringing this up before
is that we have been waiting for a statement on this matter from the Finnish music copyright authority, Teosto. This council didn't assemble until the middle of September, but our matter was moved to the next meeting which is on October. We decided that we are not going to wait any longer to publish this text.

These events have been weighing on our shoulders for several months and now we can finally share our grief with others. Events like this must be the worst nightmare of all demo bands. It feels, and has felt for several months, unbelievable.

Everyone can listen to the similarities between these two songs from the link, and decide their own stance in the matter. As we are writing this, we can say that no one who has compared the two songs so far has had a moment of doubt about the similarities of these songs."

Check it our for yourself on www.myspace.com/projectshiver or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyOSx2pXPio

How to listen Shiver Vs At Vance mp3

- Shiver (2006) 0:00
- At Vance (2007) 0:20
- Shiver (2006) 0:39
- At Vance (2007) 0:44
- Shiver (2006) 0:49
- At Vance (2007) 0:59
- Shiver (2006)1:08

Source:	myspace.com
Band profile:	At Vance