For a long time Nightwish have been the figurehead of Symphonic Metal - which is not only due to the fact that the band around Tuomas Holopainen has been existing for almost 25 years now, but also to the fact that with every album they expand, refine and push their sound. On April 10th they release their ninth studio album "Human. II: Nature", a double album with nine shorter songs and one long track. It is once again an ambitious work that will help the band to remain the reference point of this sub-genre, precisely because they have basically long since outgrown it.
The Finnish musician Tuomas Holopainen obviously loves not only the night, but also the dawn: On the one hand his symphonic metal band Nightwish is on tour again and has a career retrospective in his luggage with the double album "Decades". On the other hand, the keyboarder, together with his wife, folk singer Johanna Kurkela, and Nightwish bagpipe player Troy Donockley, founded the new band Auri and released a debut album.
Mythological themes have always been an integral part of Nightwish. The same applies to Tuomas Holopainen's new trio, which was formed during a long creative break of the band: The name Auri, derived from Aurora, the Latin expression for dawn, comes from a creature from Patrick Rothfuss's fantasy trilogy "The Royal Murderer Chronicle". For Holopainen, the Ethnopop project proved to be a means of regenerating his creative resources. In an interview he and his wife Johanna Kurkela tell how they finally put an old musical dream into action.
STEVE HACKETT - Die Stunde des Wolfs
Lange Steve Hackett has held up the flag of progressive rock of the seventies with his releases, to finally celebrate this high phase in his own cause once again with "Genesis Revisited" and at the same time reap the deserved harvest of his steadfastness. For this and above all to the new album, the concept album "Wolflight", the smart Brit is our question and answer.
TOTO - contract is contract
While the last Nightwish albums threatened to suffocate under massive soundtrack bombs, "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" marks the return to a more earthy sound. Finally, the band and the orchestra face each other almost equally again, Emppu Vuorinen's rich riffs remind us of the metal power of the early days ("Yours Is An Empty Hope", "Weak Fantasy").
Four years after "Imaginaerum", Nightwish opened a new chapter in their highly successful career with the "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" inspired by Charles Darwin. Maybe it's even the beginning of a new era: The Dutch Floor Jansen, who could already be heard on the impressive live DVD "Showtime, Storytime", is now refining the eighth studio album of the Finnish bombast specialists as a permanent band member with her very own singing style.
Cologne, early February. Nightwish have invited you to the Hard Rock Cafe near the historic Heumarkt. Keyboarder Tuomas Holopainen, bassist Marco Hietala and singer Floor Jansen answer questions from the press. Even RTL has sent a television team to report on the new constellation of Finland's most successful rock export. But before the conversation revolves around the new album, Holopainen first talks about another affair of the heart.
