NIGHTWISH: Drums Recorded For New Album

Finnish/Swedish symphonic metallers NIGHTWISH entered the studio late last week to begin recording the follow-up to 2007's "Dark Passion Play". Drummer Jukka Nevalainen writes on the band's official web site, "I usually find recording sessions stressful and just want to have them done as fast as possible, but this time it was all different. The whole session was extremely relaxed and we didn't hurry at all. We took the time to try some different approaches to some of the songs and didn't make any compromises. As one of the pictures shows, Tuomas [Holopainen, keyboardist/mainman] literally whipped the very best out of me. But I'm sure he did it with love...

"Songs have again a massive variety and mood changes from lunatic circus to a hazy jazz club.

"It was a great challenge to try to get the right touch to each of the songs, but my 'humble' opinion is that we nailed it.

"Today we finished the session by recording witch drum to the starter of the album and by playing brushes to a classy ballad in the spirit of David Lynch.

"Drums were recorded to ten songs all together and it couldn't have been any better — perfect location, great guys around to work with and some excellent music to be created."

Check out photos from the studio at this location.

The pre-production sessions for the new NIGHTWISH CD took place in "the deepest countryside of Finland," where most of the band spent several weeks finalizing the song arrangements and recording their instrumental parts.

On July 30, NIGHTWISH singer Anette Olzon gave birth to her second child (and first with her current boyfriend, bassist Johan Husgafvel of the Swedish metal band PAIN). He was 52 centimeters tall and he weighed in at 3930 grams. Olzon, 39, also has a nine-year-old son, Seth, with her now-ex-husband.

NIGHTWISH played a special homecoming show in September 2009 at the sold-out, 11,000-capacity Hartwall Arena in Helsinki to mark the end of the band's colossal "Dark Passion Play" two-year world tour.

NIGHTWISH is not expected to play any more concerts until the release of the band's next studio album.