Delain

Growing from a one-off studio project into a world-touring symphonic metal band, Delain established themselves as a mighty mix of gothic thunder, soaring classical crescendos and prog rock theatrics to become cult favourites on Europe's metal scene. Keyboard player Martijn Westerholt originally got his break in the mid-1990s playing with prog-metal favourites Within Temptation, but was forced to leave the band in 2002 when he contracted a chronic form of glandular fever which caused severe tiredness. Returning to his home in Zwolle in northeastern Holland, he initially created demo album Amenity with a group of old friends, before meeting 19-year-old singer Charlotte Wessels who was fronting To Elysium. As the pair happened to both be recovering from infectious mononucleosis, they bonded over a love of grand orchestral rock music like Queen, Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden, and set about writing their debut album Lucidity in 2006 before landing a deal with Roadrunner Records. Naming the project after a kingdom in Stephen King's novel The Eyes of the Dragon, Martijn Westerholt and Charlotte Wessels also recruited a long list of session musicians and guest collaborators including Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation, Liv Kristine of Leaves' Eyes and Marco Hietala of Nightwish and began touring regularly across Europe. Celebrating individuality, We Are the Outsiders in 2012 was inspired by the murder of British metal fan Sophie Lancaster; the album went on to reach number four in the charts in Holland. Charlotte Wessels also earned a master's degree in Gender Studies and her lyrics referenced some of the theories and ideas she learned about society's hierarchical structures on the album The Human Contradiction in 2014, while also featuring the guttural vocal growls of George Oosthoek from Orphanage and Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy. The record took the band into the top 50 of the UK charts for the first time and they also toured the US and South America and released Moonbathers in 2016, before celebrating ten years together as a band with live album A Decade of Delain: Live at Paradiso, returning again with EP Hunter's Moon in 2019. They followed this with Apocalypse & Chill in 2020 and Dark Waters in 2023. The following year saw the arrival of new single "Dance with the Devil" and an EP of the same name.