Edguy frontman Tobias Sammet’s Avantasia project has announced the new album Moonglow will be released on February 1, 2019 via Nuclear Blast. The follow-up to 2016’s Ghostlights features a number of guest musicians including the return of Ronnie Atkins (Pretty Maids), Jørn Lande (Masterplan), Eric Martin (Mr. Big), Geoff Tate (Queensryche), Michael Kiske (Helloween), Bob Catley (Magnum), as well as first-time collaborators Candice Night (Blackmore’s Night), Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian) and Mille Petrozza (Kreator).
Sammet expressed his excitement:
“It’s alive! After more than two years of hard work — and what felt like 71 overnight shifts back to back recently — we’re ready to unleash ‘Moonglow’ upon the universe. I believe it’s the most adorned and detailed album we’ve ever produced. Not over-ambitious, but there is a lot of love for detail in there. Avantasia is the ultimate playground for a musician’s wildest fantasies to come true: Celtic elements, world music elements, big choirs, atmospheric stuff, amazing guest vocal performances and, of course, all that wrapped up in what I consider to be the typical Avantasia sound.
Someone in the music business just told me that the embellished nature of the sound makes it hard to market it, [that] it doesn’t fit in the contemporary musical landscape, and ‘if you take a look around, no one really sounds like that.’ Exactly! Thank you!”
Track List:
- Ghost In The Moon
- Book Of Shallows
- Moonglow
- The Raven Child
- Starlight
- Invincible
- Alchemy
- The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn
- Lavender
- Requiem For A Dream
- Maniac
- Heart (bonus track)
