RockReviews Music Blog

Threshold's latest album has spent quite a lot of time in my CD player lately. Once again the band has crafted an amazing progressive metal album, which doesn't relapse too much on gimmickry but instead is quite a focused record. It has intriguing song structures, varying compositions and enticing hooks. However, a lot has happened since the interview I did with Richard West. Andrew "Mac" McDermott parted ways with the band, which must have come as a surprise to everyone. On a sidenote, in a way I always was more of a fan of the first singer Damian Wilson, because Mac's voice is a bit colder than Damian's. Regardless, Mac handles his part on this album well, and especially he seems to shine on the slower sections and ballads.

After the huge run at the signing session at Nuclear Blast in Donzdorf with more than 1.000 fans, partially even from foreign countries, now the Swiss have the pleasure of getting signatures from Tuomas and Anette. On Thursday, August 30th you can find the two musicians in Bern's station concourse at the ascent of the moving stairs from 6 PM on. Nightwish's new bombast album, "Dark Passion Play", the first one with new frontwoman and singer Anette Olzon, is scheduled for release on September 28th via Nuclear Blast Records in most parts of Europe.

Amorphis' latest single "Silent Waters" entered the Finnish charts at position no. 2. The Finnish metallers have now released their new video for this song.

Amorphis: Silent Waters

Guitarist Jani Liimatainen left the band and is substituted by Elias Viljanen. Therefore Sonata Arctica wants the following to be known:

During fall of '06 and spring of '07, Jani's personal matters and actions drove us to a situation where we had no option but to ask Jani to leave the band. Jani was notified of this in May, and the separation was amicable. We wanted to give Jani the chance to get his life together before making this public, which is why we didn't make this announcement earlier. We wish Jani well on his chosen path.

Threshold’s singer Andrew "Mac" McDermott has decided to leave the band for good. "Mac's still not been in touch directly but he wrote a statement on the band forum confirming that he's left", states keyboarder Richard West. Former singer Damian Wilson, who already stood in at the band’s shows at Metal Camp and Earthshaker festival, will continue helping out Threshold vocal-wise. "Damian's agreed to do the next shows and hopefully we can work out a way for him to do all the remaining tour dates."

Nightwish leader/keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen and new vocalist Anette Olzon were recently interviewed by Patrizia Mazzuoccolo of Norway's NRK P3TV about the band's singer search, problems with previous front-woman Tarja Turunen and strip clubs, among other topics. Watch the five-minute clip at this location.