Andor Flodensson and Runar Karlsson met at Del Amigo High School in Danville, California, where they both attended. Both of them were aspiring musicians. Runar had started a Folk/Viking Metal band with a few friends called White Frost. Andor wanted to join the band as a guitarist, however, his clean, arpeggio style of guitar playing (influenced greatly by bands such as Agalloch) proved to be too great of a contrast from the bombastic attitude of the rest of the band. Nonetheless, Runar saw potential in Andor, and the two of them set out to create a band that would allow them to freely express themselves as musicians without limiting themselves to one genre. Thus, R.O.D was born in June of 2008. (Andor would eventually end up joining White Frost, now renamed Skogs Hallen, as a bassist).
The band set out to work on writing songs for their first album, "Dark Reflection". They did all of their work in Runar's apartment in which he had set up a makeshift studio of sorts, consisting of several guitar amps and a computer on which they edited the recordings. For recording, they used an old headset microphone that had been broken and taped back together many times. Andor and Runar both had solo projects, and a lot of the songs on this album , including "Sea of Shadows", "Full Moon", and the title track, were contributed from both of those projects. Runar had written an instrumental piece entitled "Falling Leaves", and upon hearing it, Andor contributed lyrical ideas for the song based on his personal experiences with seasonal depression. The lyrics to the medley of "Hollow/The Games of a Shadow/The Remedy" were written by Runar, and him and Andor collaborated on writing the music for those tracks. The lyrics to "Fading Memories" were based on a poem Andor had written in response to his grandfather losing his memory to dementia. The final track on the album, the reprise of Falling Leaves, was a rough demo of "Falling Leaves" that Runar had recorded before the main version that was not intended for release. However, Andor thought it would be a good way to close the album, and thus came up with the idea to use the two versions of the song as a framing device for the album.
Although the band never officially released a demo (as they had intended to remain an independent band), an early version of the song "River of Despair" (the first song written by Andor and Runar together after they had formed R.O.D) was uploaded to the band's official MySpace page on 30 April, 2009 (one day before Andor's 20th birthday). A second song, entitled "Shadow of a Storm" was also uploaded and in addition was made available for download on CD Baby. "River of Despair" was eventually re-recorded and released on the "Dark Reflection" album. "Shadow of a Storm" was originally going to be on that album as well, however Andor had written "Dark Reflection" and, feeling it fit better with the rest of the album, wanted to release it first, so "Shadow of a Storm" was shelved with the intent to be released on a future album.
After 3 years of hard work and dedication, "Dark Reflection" was officially released on 21 December, 2011. Andor and Runar are currently relishing in the joy of their accomplishment. Soon they will resume work on their second album. Several songs are already underway.
Source : http://www.metal-archives.com/bands/River_of_Despair/3540339177
