The first lady I heard singing (in a real song, not those J'tai fain une prommese from Anathema) and didn't thought to be boring or to "girlish", she's up there .
Damn that sucks...well if she isn't gonna be...get a guest appearance from Anneke van Giersbergen, Floor Jansen, Christina Scabbia, or some other female vocalist.
i just think it was difficult to arrange stuff with maria in terms of location as she is in NYC and also I believe she had other things she was involved with that were conflicting a bit.
No Maria on the new album, but you won't know the difference because Toby's going to sing in a really high-pitched voice. Not that that's anything new .