Edge of Sanity

With a career spanning more than three decades, composer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen has firmly established himself worldwide as driving force in progressive rock. While best known for his rock opera project Ayreon, the multi-talented Dutchman also regularly embarks on musical side projects such as Ambeon, Guilt Machine and Star One. These projects all explore different aspects of Lucassen's musical personality. Lucassen strives to keep a consistent cast of vocalists for Star One rather than mixing it up with the ever-changing vocal line-up that characterizes Ayreon. For "Victims of the Modern Age" he reunited the stellar cast of lead vocalists from the first album, “Space Metal” (2002): Russell Allen (Symphony X), Damian Wilson (Headspace, Threshold), Floor Jansen (ReVamp, ex-After Forever), and Dan Swanö (Nightingale, Second Sky, ex-Edge Of Sanity)…

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy is the debut solo album of Dutch composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen, released under the name Anthony. He sang leading vocals and played most of the instruments himself. However unlike most of his future works Lucassen doesn't play bass, with Peter Vink (future member of Lucassen's band Star One and future contributor of Lucassen's project Ayreon) playing all bass. The name of the album comes from the song "Across the Universe" (by The Beatles), one of Lucassen's favorite songs.

At last, it arrives under the ominous title Kingdom of Decay. Everything on Kingdom of Decay is an intensification of that short-but-sweet debut EP: the riffs more patient but punishing, the doom darker and doled out more effectively, the songs more world-eating whilst effectively exploring a greater wealth of dynamics and, it must be said, atmosphere. Elsewhere, the winning formula of Into the Blackness remains largely unchanged - the stately, steely pulse of later Bolt Thrower or the subsequent Memoriam dusted with the classy melodicism of A Canorous Quintet and successors This Ending, but all done with a touch that's somewhere between comfortably familiar and subtly unique - and you can now also add a touch of the tank-like onslaught of prime Grave, with everything given a gleaming CRUSH courtesy of the mixing by Tobbe Sillman (General Surgery) and mastered by the one and only Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity) in the famous Unisound Studio in Sweden. This is what debut-album dreams are made of…or nightmares! The line up of DARKENED features corrent and former members of BOLT THROWER, MEMORIAM, GRAVE, THIS ENDING, etc. and the music is pure old school Death Metal !!

It’s time for another deep dive into the horrors of mortality and the foul side of the supernatural. It’s time for Survival Of The Sickest, the sixth full-length album from Bloodbath, Sweden’s undisputed masters of old school death metal. Formed by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström (both of Katatonia), Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth) and Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity) in 1998, Bloodbath devoted themselves to resurrecting the increasingly forgotten art of pure death metal. In 2014, they unveiled a new frontman - legendary Paradise Lost vocalist Nick Holmes, now redubbed Old Nick - and yet another macabre musical evolution. With a line-up of Renkse, Nyström, Per ‘Sodomizer’ Eriksson (ex-Katatonia), Martin ‘Axe’ Axenrot (ex-Opeth) and Holmes, the only way to go was grim…

Full Dynamic Range Remastered edition of At The Gates fourth studio album.
When it was first released, At the Gates' Earache debut Slaughter of the Soul was regarded as a generally excellent example of Gothenburg-style melodic death metal, and certainly the band's best and most focused album to date. But the commonly held view was that it wasn't anything all that special, either. After all, it lacked the intricate twin-guitar leads of In Flames, the complex song structures of Dark Tranquillity, the progressive artistry of Edge of Sanity, or even the rock & roll underpinnings of latter-day Entombed. Slaughter of the Soul was more obviously rooted in American thrash (especially Slayer) than its peers, and didn't seem to be consciously trying to break new ground…

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy is the debut solo album of Dutch composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Anthony Lucassen, released under the name Anthony. He sang leading vocals and played most of the instruments himself. However unlike most of his future works Lucassen doesn't play bass, with Peter Vink (future member of Lucassen's band Star One and future contributor of Lucassen's project Ayreon) playing all bass. The name of the album comes from the song "Across the Universe" (by The Beatles), one of Lucassen's favorite songs.

Nightingale's sought-after “Nightfall Overture” release, which gathers re-imagined and re-recorded versions of songs from the band’s first four albums, is now remastered by songwriter/frontman/producer Dan Swanö (Opeth, Katatonia, Edge Of Sanity, etc).
First released in 2005, “Nightfall Overture” in its upgraded shape offers a perfect introductory opportunity to (re-) discover Nightingale’s early and highly versatile body of work. The shadow breathes once more…