Delain

Growing from a one-off studio project into a world-touring symphonic metal band, Delain established themselves as a mighty mix of gothic thunder, soaring classical crescendos and prog rock theatrics to become cult favourites on Europe's hard rock scene. Keyboard player Martijn Westerholt originally got his break in the mid-1990s playing with prog-metal favourites Within Temptation, but was forced to leave the band in 2002 when he contracted a chronic form of glandular fever which caused severe tiredness.

Returning to his home in Zwolle in the north east of Holland, he initially created demo album 'Amenity' with a group of old friends, before meeting 19-year-old singer Charlotte Wessels who was fronting To Elysium and happened to be suffering with the same disease. As the pair recovered together, they bonded over a love of grand orchestral rock music like Queen, Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden, and set about writing their debut album 'Lucidity' in 2006 before landing a deal with Roadrunner Records. Naming the project after a kingdom in Stephen King's novel 'The Eyes of the Dragon', Westerholt and Wessels also recruited a long list of session musicians and guest collaborators including Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation, Liv Kristine of Leaves' Eyes and Marco Hietala of Nightwish and began touring regularly across Europe.

Celebrating individuality, 'We Are the Outsiders' in 2012 was inspired by the murder of British metal fan Sophie Lancaster; the album went on to reach number four in the charts in Holland. Wessels also earned a master's degree in Gender Studies and her lyrics referenced some of the theories and ideas she learned about society's hierarchical structures on the album 'The Human Contradiction' in 2014, while also featuring the guttural vocal growls of George Oosthoek from Orphanage and Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy. The record took the band into the top 50 of the UK charts for the first time and they also toured to the US and South America and released 'Moonbathers' in 2016, before celebrating ten years together as a band with live album 'A Decade of Delain: Live at Paradiso', returning again with EP 'Hunter's Moon' in 2019. They followed this with 'Apocalypse & Chill' in 2020.