You might've heard last of Leverage back in 2009, with the release of their last full-studio album, Circus Colossus, but it seems as though the wolves are back from their long hiatus, with a fresh new line-up that includes Mikko Salovaara (ex-Kiuas) on second guitars and Kimmo Blom (Heartplay, Dyecrest) on vocals. The newly revamped Leverage will now opt to release a 4-track long EP later this year, with the drums to be recorded first on April 13th, and a fourth full-length installment to their catalogue by the spring of next year.

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Band profile:	Leverage

Norwegian symphonic giants Sirenia have officially begun working on a follow-up to Dim Days Of Dolor, their latest album, which will also be the second album to feature their new vocalist, Emmanuelle Zoldan, who joined their ranks in 2016.

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Band profile:	Sirenia

Nuclear Blast just announced that the new, upcoming compilation album of the Finnish symphonic masters Nightwish, titled Decades - An Archive Of Song will be released on March 3rd, 2018, and is now available for pre-order! This compilation album will be released in celebration of the band's worldwide success over the years, and will debut the remastered versions of the best Nightwish songs between the years of 1996-2016, including the band's earliest, self-titled demo, and a variety of songs from all of the band's eras.

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Band profile:	Nightwish

Further development have been made in regard to Cynic's status. The progressive metal legends have agreed that Cynic will continue its activity without long-time original drummer Sean Reinert, as guitarist and vocalist Paul Masvidal will push on to find new talents to add to the Cynic fame. In his farewell post on the band's Facebook page, Reinert explained the situation and the agreement reached between him and Masvidal and the future plans for both musicians.

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Band profile:	Cynic

Jani Liimatainen and Timo Kotipelto, who are known together in their band Cain's Offering, will soon tour South America with their acoustic material, Blackoustic, known as Kotipelto & Liimatainen. Previously, they had played outside of their home country of Finland only once in Italy, but now they have announced great news for all Latin fans! They will also return to Italy for three concerts later this year.

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Band profile:	Cain's Offering

The Dark Element, the collaboration project between Cain's Offering's mastermind and guitarist, Jani Liimatainen, and ex-Nightwish vocalist, Anette Olzon, will release their debut self-titled album on November 10th 2017, and after releasing not less than three songs for the public to enjoy, now they have a new surprise unveiled - a "Making-Of" video, which features both Liimatainen and Olzon, explaining how the process of composing, writing and collaborating in the album went. This video also premiered "The Ghost And The Reaper", a fourth track off the album. The video was shot in Patric Ullaeus' studio, where the music video of "My Sweet Mystery" and one another, yet unpublished, music video were filmed.

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Band profile:	The Dark Element

The last time we've heard from Finnish cinematic metallers Dark Sarah, Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto (ex-Charon, ex-Poisonblack) officially joined the band's lineup as The Dragon, a fictional character in Dark Sarah's trilogy, that he himself brought life to in the previous album in the song "Dance With The Dragon". Now, after quite a while of looking for donors with their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, they have published the very first snippet from the finale album of the first Dark Sarah trilogy, The Chronicles - the epic "Trespasser" video which was shot in the middle of the desert, and was directed by Markus Nieminen (who also worked with bands such as Amberian Dawn, Ravenia and Kiuas).

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Band profile:	Dark Sarah

Finnish superstars Northern Kings, consisting some of the most recognisable Finnish vocalists: Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot), Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica) and Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto (ex-Charon, Dark Sarah), recently performed an all-time greatest Finnish heavy metal song medley in the national prestigious Finnish Vuosisadan Kulttuurigaala event (Culture Gala of the Century, celebrating 100 years of independent Finland), which took place on October 18th, 2017, and was streamed by the Finnish national broadcasting company, YLE. The songs performed were as follows: "Tallulah" (Sonata Arctica), "Colder" (Charon), "Wings Of Darkness" (Tarot), "Towards Dead End" (Children Of Bodom), "Hunting High And Low" (Stratovarius) and "Wish I Had An Angel" (Nightwish). You can watch the performance in full here.

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Source:	areena.yle.fi
Band profile:	Northern Kings

The Finnish/Swedish supergroup The Dark Element, which features Nightwish's former vocalist Anette Olzon and Sonata Arctica's former guitarist leading, premiered a new lyric video for the song "Dead To Me" (featuring Niilo Sevänen of Insomnium on vocals), which is track number 6 in their debut self-titled album, coming out on November 10th through Frontiers Records Srl. The Dark Element previously released 2 songs out of their album, and one music video. Listen to the epic track below!

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Band profile:	The Dark Element

Swedish singer Anette Olzon (ex-Nightwish) and Finnish guitarist and composer Jani Liimatainen (Cain's Offering, ex-Sonata Arctica) recently premiered their new collaboration project, The Dark Element, which also features Liimatainen's Cain's Offering counterparts Jani "Hurtsi" Hurula (drums) and Jonas Kuhlberg (bass). Today Frontiers Records Srl released the debut music video for the second track of The Dark Element's upcoming debut self-titled album, and its name is "My Sweet Mystery". The music video was produced by the acclaimed Swedish director Patric Ullaeus. Enjoy!

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Band profile:	The Dark Element

Last year, Frontiers Records Srl announced the collaborative project between ex-Sonata Arctica guitarist and the mastermind of Cain's Offering Jani Liimatainen and ex-Nightwish singer Anette Olzon. Now, strengthened by Liimatainen's Cain's Offering bandmates Jani "Hurtsi" Hurula (drums) and Jonas Kuhlberg (bass), and officially known as The Dark Element, this Finnish/Swedish project will release their debut self-titled album on November 10th, 2017. You can pre-order the album here. The band have been reporting to be also working on their first music video, which is produced by the notorious Swedish producer, Patric Ulleus.

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Band profile:	Cain's Offering

Founding members of Silent Voices and Winterborn have just announced their new adventure, and it is the band Ragecast. The band originally teamed up to support Tim "Ripper" Owens for his shows around Czech Republic a few years ago, and now they have announced their debut EP, Heavy Metal Meltdown, which will feature Tim "Ripper" Owens (Tim "Ripper" Owens, ex-Judas Priest), Mats Levén (Candlemass, ex-At Vance) and Michael Vescera (Vescera) on session lead vocals and Jukka Hänninen (Winterborn) as their live keyboard player.

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Band profile:	Silent Voices

Norwegian progressive metal unit Rendezvous Point have just announced they have entered PhatCat Studios, in Oslo, Norway, and are in course towards a new album that will follow their 2015 debut album, Solar Storm. Drummer Baard Kolstad (who also plays for Leprous, God Seed and ICS Vortex among others) teased with the short status: "New crazy-rhythm-album in the making..." on his official Facebook page. The band have yet to unveil further details.

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Band profile:	Rendezvous Point

UK-based progressive metal giants Haken just announced the release of the new "Lapse" video, which is the fourth track out of the band's 2016 album, Affinity. The video is published through the band's new VEVO YouTube channel. All the band had to say about this video is "Happy New Video Day! Get our spiffing new 'Lapse' visuals into your eyeballs". Watch the vivid and colourful video below, and let us know what you think!

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Source:	hakenmusic.com
Band profile:	Haken

Swedish heavy metal veterans Dream Evil announced via Triffid And Danger Concerts that they will be playing two shows in Gothenburg and Stockholm, Sweden, in December 2017, and they will be supported by fellow Swedish power metallers Astral Doors in both of these concerts. These shows are in celebration of their latest release, SIX, which came out on late May this year.

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Band profile:	Dream Evil