music

Nevermore was an American heavy metal band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 1991. The band has been inactive since 2011, due to personal issues between the band members. In April 2015, lead singer Warrel Dane confirmed that Nevermore had not disbanded, and there was a possibility for them to continue in the next two years with another album. However, Dane died in December 2017, ending hopes of a reunion.

Gojira is a French heavy metal band from Ondres. Founded as Godzilla in 1996, the band's lineup—brothers Joe and Mario Duplantier (drums), Christian Andreu, and Jean-Michel Labadie (bass)—has been the same since the band changed its name to Gojira in 2001. Gojira has been known for their progressive and technical death metal styles and their spiritual, philosophical, and environmentally-themed lyrics. The band has gone "from the utmost obscurity during the first half of their career to widespread global recognition in the second".

Porcupine Tree are an English rock band formed by musician Steven Wilson in 1987. During an initial career spanning more than twenty years, they earned critical acclaim from critics and fellow musicians, developed a cult following, and became an influence for new artists. The group carved out a career at a certain distance away from mainstream music, being described by publications such as Classic Rock and PopMatters as "the most important band you’d never heard of".

Amorphis is a Finnish heavy metal band founded by Jan Rechberger, Tomi Koivusaari, and Esa Holopainen in 1990. Initially, the band was a death metal act, but on later albums they evolved into playing other genres, including progressive metal, and folk metal. They frequently use the Kalevala, the epic poem of Finland, as a source for their lyrics.

Jan Rechberger played in a thrash metal band called Violent Solution, which Tomi Koivusaari had left in 1990 to form the death metal band Abhorrence, with Koivusaari being replaced by Esa Holopainen. Violent Solution slowly dissolved with Jan Rechberger and Esa Holopainen deciding to continue working with each other to form their own death metal band, Amorphis. With Rechberger having ties with Koivusaari, in early 1990, Koivusaari became the vocalist and the band also got Oppu Laine to become their bassist. During that time, Koivusaari also performed rhythm guitar, leading to the band dumping all original compositions and starting over again. Koivusaari's other band, Abhorrence, split up and he found himself with more time to put into Amorphis.

Vegard Sverre Tveitan, better known by his stage name Ihsahn, is a Norwegian multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer, best known for his work with black metal band Emperor. Tveitan is also a founding member of Thou Shalt Suffer, where he played guitar and keyboard in addition to vocal duties, and Peccatum, a project in collaboration with his wife and fellow musician Heidi Solberg Tveitan, also known as Starofash. Since 2006, Tveitan has primarily devoted himself to solo albums and occasional guest appearances.

Green Carnation is a Norwegian progressive metal band from Kristiansand, formed in 1990. Green Carnation's trend of music has continuously changed on every release one by one; from straight forward death metal in their demo, to death-doom, then a progressive doom metal sound, to an atmospheric gothic metal sound, to a melancholic hard rock sound and in 2006, went as far as to releasing an entirely acoustic album Acoustic Verses. The band released its first album in 14 years titled Leaves of Yesteryear on May 8, 2020, which marked a return to their earlier gothic progressive metal roots. A new single was composed, arranged, rehearsed and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, called "The World Without a View", and released digitally on December 18th 2020.

Devin Garrett Townsend (born May 5, 1972) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He founded extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad and was its primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist from 1994 to 2007. He has also had an extensive solo career and has released a total of 28 albums across all of his projects as of 2022.

After performing in a number of heavy metal bands in high school, Townsend was discovered in 1993 by a record label who asked him to perform lead vocals on Steve Vai's album Sex & Religion. After recording and touring with Vai, he was discouraged by what he found in the music industry and vented his anger on his 1995 solo album Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, which he released under the pseudonym Strapping Young Lad. He soon assembled a band of the same name, with whom he released the critically acclaimed album City in 1997. Since then, he has released three more studio albums with Strapping Young Lad, along with solo material released under his own independent HevyDevy Records label.

Dan-Erland Swanö (born 10 March 1973), also known as Dan "The Man" Swanö, is a Swedish musician and record producer who is currently the vocalist, guitarist, ex-bassist and ex-drummer for the band Nightingale, lately vocalist, keyboardist and drummer for the band Witherscape, as well as the owner of Unisound, but he achieved fame as the vocalist and songwriter of progressive death metal band Edge of Sanity.

As a multi-instrumentalist he is regarded as influential in the underground melodic death metal, black metal, progressive metal, death metal, progressive rock, and power metal communities. He is known for his progressive rock-influenced songwriting style and his frequent use of both clean and growled vocals.

Devin Garrett Townsend is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He founded extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad and was its primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist from 1994 to 2007. He has also had an extensive solo career and has released a total of 28 albums across all of his projects as of 2022.

Warrel Dane (born Warrel G. Baker; March 7, 1961 – December 13, 2017) was an American musician who was the lead singer for the metal bands Sanctuary and Nevermore. He was a natural baritone; though he was known for his high-pitched vocals with Serpent's Knight and on the first two Sanctuary albums, later in his career, Dane became more notable for his distinctively deep, dramatic voice.

Dane was trained for five years as an opera singer and utilized a very broad vocal range, spanning from notes as low as the G♯ below low C, or G♯1, to notes as high as the B♭ below soprano C, or B♭5. While his high head voice style vocals were much more prominent in the older Sanctuary albums, there were instances where he utilized it in Nevermore as well. Sanctuary's 2014 comeback album The Year the Sun Died includes these higher passages on three songs. Dane provided the voice of Candynose Twinskins in the musical comedy Metalocalypse on Adult Swim.

Arcturus is a Norwegian avant-garde metal band formed in 1991. Their name, which means "Bear Guardian", references the Behenian fixed star Arcturus.

Anathema were an English rock band from Liverpool. The group was formed in 1990 by Vincent and Daniel Cavanagh, bassist Jamie Cavanagh, drummer/keyboardist John Douglas, and vocalist Darren White.

Katatonia is a Swedish heavy metal band formed in Stockholm in 1991 by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström. The band started as a studio-only project for the duo, as an outlet for the band's love of death metal. Increasing popularity led them to add more band members for live performances, though outside of the band's founders, the lineup was a constantly changing, revolving door of musicians throughout the 1990s, notably including Mikael Åkerfeldt of the band Opeth for a period. After two death/doom albums, Dance of December Souls (1993) and Brave Murder Day (1996), problems with Renkse's vocal cords coupled with new musical influences led the band away from the screamed vocals of death metal to a more traditional, melodic form of heavy metal music.

Dream Theater is an American progressive metal band formed in 1985 under the name Majesty by John Petrucci, John Myung and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. They subsequently dropped out of their studies to concentrate further on the band that would eventually become Dream Theater. Their current lineup consists of Petrucci, Myung, vocalist James LaBrie, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and drummer Mike Mangini.

Strapping Young Lad was a Canadian extreme metal band formed by Devin Townsend in Vancouver in 1994. The band started as a one-man studio project; Townsend played most of the instruments on the 1995 debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. By 1997, he had recruited permanent members; this line-up, which consisted of Townsend on vocals and guitar, Jed Simon on guitar, Byron Stroud on bass, and Gene Hoglan on drums, lasted until the band's dissolution.

Sahara is the first full-length studio album by the Israeli metal band Orphaned Land, released on November 25, 1994 by French label Holy Records. The 2002 digipak re-release of the album features three bonus tracks: "Above You All", "Pits of Despair" and "The Beloved's Cry " and edited cover art. The songs "Seasons Unite", "The Beloveds Cry", "My Requiem", "Orphaned Land – The Storm Still Rages Inside..." are all from the demo The Beloved's Cry.

Death was an American death metal band formed in Altamonte Springs, Florida in 1984 by guitarist and vocalist Chuck Schuldiner. Death is considered to be among the most influential bands in heavy metal and a pioneering force in the extreme metal subgenre of death metal. The band's debut album, Scream Bloody Gore, has been widely regarded as one of the first death metal records, alongside the first records from Possessed and Necrophagia.

Death had a revolving lineup, with Schuldiner being the sole consistent member. The group's style also progressed, from the raw sound on its first two albums to a more sophisticated one in its later stage. The band ceased to exist after Schuldiner died of glioma and pneumonia in December 2001, but remains an enduring influence on heavy metal.

Disillusion is a German progressive metal band from Leipzig.

Disillusion was founded in 1994 by Andy Schmidt, Tobias Spier, Alex Motz, Markus Espenhain and Jan Stölzel. The band played Thrash Metal. Despite the departure of bassist Markus Espenhain in early 1996, the first demo Subspace Insanity was recorded in March the same year.

1997 followed Red, where the band already developed their own style. The second demo was mixed and mastered by Andy Schmidt and Alex Tscholakov at TAM Recording in Zwickau. Despite growing local success and the prospect of the band becoming more serious, Disillusion was put on hold because of lack of time of some band members.

With joining of guitarist Rajk Barthel and drummer Jens Maluschka in 1999 and 2000 Disillusion started again. They played some concerts and recorded their third demo Three Neuron Kings in summer 2001 (again with Alex Tscholakov at TAM Recording). The record received positive reviews by the music press. In spring of 2002 Disillusion went on tour again and won an EP production at the Legacy Band Contest. The record was recorded at TAM Recording in 2002 and called The Porter. It also reached international reputation in the music press and attracted the attention of larger labels.