''April Rain'' is the second studio album by Dutch

symphonic metal Symphonic metal is a cross-genre style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars ...

band Delain. It was released in the Benelux on 20 March 2009 and was released internationally on 30 March 2009 by

Roadrunner Records Roadrunner Records is a Dutch–American record label focused on Heavy metal music, heavy metal and hard rock music. Founded in the Netherlands in 1980, it is now a division of Warner Music Group and is based in New York City. Formerly seen as ...

. It was released in Australia on 10 April 2009.

History

Martijn Westerholt, founder of Delain, originally did not intend Delain to be a live band. But after the success of debut album '' Lucidity'' a live band was created which recorded the album ''April Rain''. While Delain's previous album '' Lucidity'' featured many guest appearances, this album has only two: Maria Ahn, cellist from the Ahn Trio and Finnish singer Marko Hietala, who was featured on multiple tracks of ''Lucidity'' as well. "Virtue and Vice" is the only song on ''April Rain'' containing

death growl The death growl, or simply growl, is an extended vocal technique usually employed in extreme styles of music, particularly in death metal and other Extreme metal, extreme Heavy metal genres, subgenres of heavy metal music. Sometimes death gro ...

s performed by guitarist Ronald Landa, who also contributes clean vocals on "Invidia". Demo versions of "Stay Forever" and "Start Swimming" were already played live by Delain in 2007 and 2008. In November 2008, a version of the song "I'll Reach You" with alternate lyrics was performed live on a Dutch TV show to get attention for UNICEF & BT's "Inspiring Young Minds" charity. The original release date for the album was 9 February 2009, but in January it was announced that the release was postponed to coincide with foreign release dates. In February 2009, "April Rain" was revealed to be the first single from this album when it became available for purchase online. On 13 March 2009, the Dutch website of Roadrunner Records put the entire album up for streaming, only available to residents of the Netherland

In October 2009, "Stay Forever" was announced as the second single from the album.

Track listing

Personnel

Delain * Charlotte Wessels –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

*Ronald Landa –

guitars The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

on track 3 and 6, backing vocals * Martijn Westerholt – keyboards, production *Rob van der Loo –

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

*Sander Zoer –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

Additional musicians * Marko Hietala –

on tracks 4 and 11 *Maria Ahn –

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

on tracks 5 and 6 *Guus Eikens – guitars on tracks 4, 5, 6 and 8 *Oliver Philipps – guitar on all tracks except 6, orchestrations, production Production *Jacob Hansen – engineering, mixing *Mark Jansen – photography *Joachim Ehrig – mastering *Dennis van der Meule – art direction, design *Hans de Ruiter – art direction, design

Charts

References

External links

Delain Official Site

Metallum Archives
{{Authority control 2009 albums Delain albums Roadrunner Records albums