Frontiers Records has recently announced the release of Timo Tolkki's Avalon new Metal Opera entitled The Land Of New Hope on May 17th in Europe and May 21st in North America. Take a look at the artwork below, which was specially created for this project by Stanis W. Decker and will be released in two versions - regular CD and deluxe edition with a bonus DVD including a 30 minutes documentary "making of the album" and two promotional video clips.

Timo Tolkki has been silently preparing his musical revenge. Following a call in august 2012 from Frontiers Records President Serafino Perugino, Tolkki quickly cancelled all plans and started writing new music following an original concept discussed years ago between the artist and Perugino. The idea was to have a magniloquent metal/rock opera with cinematic orchestrations to bring back the Stratovarius original sound in a more symphonic and grandiose fashion.

"I sort of rediscovered myself musically in the process of making this album", explains Tolkki. "I wrote the story first and started composing the music after that. My aim was to write memorable songs with good melodies that would support the story. In Stratovarius back in early 90's, I was one of those who were there in creating the whole Power Metal genre, so it is natural that people may associate this music style to me. But on this album you will find a lot of different dynamics as well with some songs that are fully orchestrated and sound very very big."

For this unique album, Tolkki gathered some of the most renowned singers around including Michael Kiske (Unisonic), Elize Ryd (Amaranthe), Rob Rock (Impelliteri), Russell Allen (Symphony X), Sharon Den Adel (Within Temptation) and Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica).

Rounding up the line-up of this album are: Alex Holzwarth (Rhapsody Of Fire) on drums and Jens Johansson (Stratovarius), Derek Sherinian (Black Country Communion), Mikko Härkin (Sonata Arctica) on keyboards, with Tolkki taking care of all guitars and bass recordings and production duties.

Tolkki says: "The Land Of New Hope album is one part of the story, the end of it actually. The story is longer and goes back to the time before this album's story, so 2 more Metal Operas are likely to follow to complete a trilogy. In generally, I find the Metal Opera concept fascinating and logical to me at this point of my career. I love classical music and just like in Classical Opera, in the Metal Opera you can also create stories and have almost limitless possibilities musically. It is not so easy to stay fresh after 25 years career, but this album is truly something special."

The first single "Enshrined In My Memory" (sung by Amaranthe's Elize Ryd) will be released digitally worldwide on March 25th. You can enjoy a full EPK presentation of the album here.




The Land Of New Hope tracklist:

01. Avalanche Anthem
02. A World Without Us
03. Enshrined In My Memory
04. In The Name Of The Rose
05. We Will Find A Way
06. Shine
07. The Magic Of The Night
08. To The Edge Of The Earth
09. I'll Sing You Home
10. The Land Of New Hope

Source:	frontiers.it
Band profile:	Timo Tolkki