Nightwish has spent a decade split between two labels, with every album since 2004’s Once being handled by Roadrunner in the US and by Nuclear Blast in Europe. That will no longer be the case as of today, as Nightwish has announced that they are signing with Nuclear Blast Entertainment in North America, which reunites them with former Roadrunner A&R guru Monte Conner.
Conner stated of the signing:
It was a pleasure to work with Nightwish at my former label, but now in my new capacity at NBE, I will be more directly involved with the band than ever before. I would like to thank Nightwish and their management for their continued faith in, and loyalty to, me. I am particularly excited at the prospect of hearing [lead vocalist] Floor Jansen’s debut studio recording with the band. Her performance on last year’s live release Showtime, Storytime completely blew me away and proved why she is the PERFECT singer for Nightwish.
Recordings for Nightwish’s as-yet-untitled eighth studio album are expected to begin this summer. The band has been demoing material for some time already. This album with be Jansen’s first album of new material as part of Nightwish, although she will not be part of the songwriting process, according to an interview with keyboardist and composer Tuomas Holopainen. The band is expected to record all the way through January of next year, with a release date anticipated for the spring. The band will be uploading a series of “Making Of” videos to Nuclear Blast’s YouTube page during the course of the album’s production, and you can view the first of those episodes below to see some of the demo process.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB1IrA8FwrY[/youtube]
