Delain and Amorphis will be embarking on a co-headlining tour of North America with special guest Anneke van Giersbergen. Tickets for this 15+ show are still available here.
”Dutch symphonic rockers Delain have been releasing and performing their signature catchy melodicmetal sound worldwide for over a decade now. The five albums on their name include guest performancesfrom the titans of the scene, among others: Sharon Den Adel (Within Temptation), Marco Hietala (Nightwish), Alissa White-Gluz (Arch Enemy), Burton C. Bell (Fear Factory). Having toured the globe with bands like Nightwish, Sabaton and Within Temptation, and having rocked festivals like Wacken, Graspop, Download and Fortarock, Delain have strongly carved their niche within the scene.
The band is currently working on the follow up to their chart hitting record Moonbathers, due 2019. Bridging the gap between studio records is their first ever live DVD “A Decade of Delain – Live at Paradiso” released October 2017, and – proving themselves to one of the most productive bands in the game – Delain have just released the exciting new EP/Blu-Ray “Hunter’s Moon”
Following the great response from fans to 2017’s “Danse Macabre” tour, the release that was initially announced as ‘just’ an EP, features a DVD with ten never seen before live tracks from the famed Danse Macabre tour, featuring Marco Hietala (Nightwish), at the biggest Dutch clubshow in the band’s history at Tivoli Ronda – Utrecht.
The audio CD includes these ten live tracks and offers with brand new songs “Hunter’s Moon” and “Masters of Destiny” a haunting preview of what Delain is working on for their next studio album, due 2019. Also noteworthy are the two bonustracks exclusive to this release, where the band’s guitarists step to the forefront in composing This Silence Is Mine (Timo Somers) and Art Kills (Merel Bechtold). All in all a release that far surpasses what one would expect from an EP, Delain fans will be excited to experience “Hunter’s Moon”
Delain’s upcoming full album is expected early 2020.
It’s been 24 years since Amorphis changed the metal world forever with their second album »Tales From The Thousand Lakes«; an epic piece of work that paved the way for one of the most successful Finnish music careers of all time. On twelve albums so far, Amorphis has brought us closer to the Finnish national epic, the “Kalevala”, toured the world several times, received countless gold records and managed to achieve success after success with their unmistakable mix of metal, folklore and rock.
Many winters have since passed through Finland but Amorphis is still there and is bigger than ever, more important than ever and better than ever! With their fateful thirteenth studio album »Queen Of Time«, the band provides a ground-breaking epic about the rise and fall of civilization. The day has come – the next defining moment in an unprecedented career has arrived.
Attentive listeners may have expected a further rise in the level of heaviness after the release of their last record (culminating in 2015 in the phenomenal and acclaimed Under The Red Cloud), but Amorphis has changed the game once more. The band, which in recent years has refined and improved its iconic style, now opens a breathtaking new chapter. One thing is already certain: Amorphis has never before told their stories of the thousand lakes as complex, as enthralling, as inventive and monumental as on Queen Of Time.
Guesting on the album is the likes of Chrigel Glanzmann (Eluveitie) on pipes, laryngeal singer Albert Kuvezin and saxophonist Jørgen Munkeby, plus an orchestra and a choir (a novelty for a band now in their 30th year)! These elements deliver a dramatic and cinematic depth to the sound, making everything even more epic, even deeper, and even more meaningful than ever before. Most importantly, these additions do not steal the show from the archaic magic that is Amorphis. Holopainen nods enthusiastically: “We’ve secretly been looking for this rush, this metamorphosis, for years.”
A good example for this is the first single, triumphant opener ‘The Bee‘: It begins with sonorous laryngeal singing, a siren-like female voice and strikingly shimmering synths, before getting started in the typical Amorphis manner. Melodies from another sphere, raw harshness, grandeur, elaborate orchestration and melancholy, flow seamlessly into each other as if these different worlds always belonged to one another. As a symbol of this sublime game of light and shadow, everything is enthroned by Tomi Joutsen’s voice. Sometimes grumbling, sometimes full of mournful fervor, sometimes crystal clear above everything – he is, now more than ever, a skald, a prophet, a storyteller.
And that is just the beginning. The entire album is a ride at full speed through archetypally Finnish metal witchcraft; a dark, mysterious, melancholic evening around the campfire. The fabulous melodies in the fast-paced ‘Message In The Amber‘ are as Nordic as they can be, in ‘Daughter Of Hate‘ aggression and black metal screams unite with oriental melodies into a fire signal of the downfall with dark choirs. ‘Wrong Direction‘, on the other hand, is gentle in nature and intentionally reduced. But just because Amorphis now has choirs and strings it does not mean that they completely overburden their sound. ‘We Accursed‘ comes with full energy: Subtle Ennio Morricone flair, majestic, sublime, elegant – already a future classic in the live set! And then, of course, there’s the overarching ‘Amongst Stars‘, another anthem with the fabulous Anneke van Giersbergen contributing a guest appearance.
Dutch vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen is easily one of the hardest working people in music, and an artist that defies being pigeonholed by genre. She will forever be known as the vocalist for melancholic metallers The Gathering, but since striking out on her own in 2007, she has solidified a solo career, recorded and performed multiple times with Canadian metal genius Devin Townsend, and lending her honey-sweet, yet powerful voice to the likes of Anathema, Icelandic folk group Árstíðir, Within Temptation, Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen, Moonspell, John Wetton and Napalm Death. This has provided Anneke with a huge catalogue to choose from as a live performer, but it has also created a certain amount of confusion amongst her fans which has led to the creation of a new group, VUUR, a band that features some of the best heavy metal players in the Netherlands.
In 2016, Anneke decided for the sake of clarity to narrow her musical focus, choosing to go in a folk acoustic direction as a solo artist and in a heavy progressive metal direction as a band vocalist. The name VUUR – translated from Dutch as “fire”, which can also be interpreted to mean “passion” or “drive” – was chosen as a moniker to represent Anneke’s metal side, with the idea that when fans buy a ticket with the VUUR name on it they will be getting her heavy progressive music, while an Anneke van Giersbergen show will be entirely different.
Having proven her credentials and immense vocal talent for 13 years as front woman of The Gathering, in 2007 Anneke felt it was time to begin her own solo career. Along with her new band Agua de Annique the charismatic singer quickly established herself as a solo artist, releasing several albums to critical and popular acclaim.
2012’s Everything is Changing was something of a milestone in Anneke’s solo career. The album, which was the first to be released under her own name got her nominated for two Edison awards – Holland’s most prestigious music prize – in the categories ‘Best Female Artist’ and ‘Best Album’.
Anneke’s latest solo album Drive (2013) was her first release for German label InsideOut Music. Its accompanying tour took Anneke and her band all over the world as she toured over 25 different countries in Europe and the Americas.
On March 20 2015, Anneke van Giersbergen and Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) released their collaborative album The Diary under the name The Gentle Storm.
VUUR will release their full-length debut in October 2017 on InsideOut Music. From there the band will hit stages across Europe and beyond. Make no mistake: VUUR is a band and not a project, meaning that Anneke will focus on new material as well as the heavier side of her previous outings.
Upcoming Tour Dates:
Thu, SEP 19 – Theatre of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
Fri, SEP 20 – Gramercy Theatre – New York, NY
Sat, SEP 21 – Palladium – Worcester, MA
Sun, SEP 22 – Upstate Concert Hall – Saratoga County, NY
Mon, SEP 23 – Club Soda – Montreal, Canada
Tue, SEP 24 – Mavericks – Ottawa, Canada
Wed, SEP 25 – Impérial Bell – Quebec, Canada
Thu, SEP 26 – The Opera House – Toronto, Canada
Fri, SEP 27 – Agora Theater & Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
Sat, SEP 28 – The Forge – Joliet, IL
Sun, SEP 29 – Turner Hall Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI
Mon, SEP 30 – The Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN
Wed, OCT 2 – Dickens – Calgary, Canada
Thu, OCT 3 – Starlite Room – Edmonton, Canada
Sat, OCT 5 – Venue Nightclub – Vancouver, Canada
Sun, OCT 6 – El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Tue, OCT 8 – Ace Of Spades – Sacramento, CA
Wed, OCT 9 – Slim’s – San Francisco, CA
Thu, OCT 10 – The Roxy Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
Fri, OCT 11 – City National Grove Of Anaheim – Anaheim, CA
Sat, OCT 12 – Marquee Theatre – Tempe, AZ
Mon, OCT 14 – Gothic Theatre – Englewood, CO
Tue, OCT 15 – The Riot Room – Kansas City, MO
Wed, OCT 16 – Trees – DIN Productions – Dallas, TX
Thu, OCT 17 – Scout Bar – Houston, TX
Sat, OCT 19 – The Orpheum – Tampa, FL
Sun, OCT 20 – The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
Mon, OCT 21 – Baltimore Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
