Stratovarius - Elysium

[korruption]

Here's something to fap to for any fellow Stratoheads here:

New album "Elysium", Jan 12 2011. Single on Nov 26
"Preliminary tracklist of "Elysium": (order of songs and working titles are subject to change)

Heavenly Divine
Infernal Maze
Elysium, part I, II and III
Civilization
Darkest Hours
Under Flaming Skies
No return
New Horizon
Move the Mountain
Castaway (Japan Bonus Track)"

And about the single...

"A single with two new songs of "Elysium" will be released on 26 November this year, coinciding with the start date of the "7 sinners world tour" on which Stratovarius will join Helloween as very special guests - kicking off the same day in the Szene, Vienna.

The single also contains a demo track, and two unreleased live tracks recorded earlier this year on Stratovarius’ wildly successful 2009/2010 "Polaris" world tour."

The following tracks will be part of the single:

Darkest Hours (from the upcoming album "Elysium")
Infernal Maze (from the upcoming album "Elysium")
Darkest Hours (demo version)
Against the Wind (live recording, Sofia, Bulgaria)
Black Diamond (live recording, Göteborg, Sweden)


Imagine waking up to that news. So, who gonna be buying?

 

[pyramazekeyboardist]

That's some seriously powerful and relevant album artwork. Kudos to them -J

 

[Iced Dog]

Agreed...should be a cool album, Polaris was good stuff

 

[korruption]

Some tragic news - Jorg Michael has cancer...
I hope he can fight this off.

Dear Stratovarius fans, I am afraid we have some quite terrible news. News of the worst imaginable kind. It's about our friend and drummer Jörg Michael.

Jörg has cancer.

He recently discovered a lump on his neck, went to the doctor, they decided to operate, and found what they call "a malignant thyroid neoplasm". They took out his whole thyroid just to have the best chance to get everything out. He will also have to undergo a regimen of radiotherapy. He is a fighter. We have all talked to him and it's clear that this guy is not down for the count. He and his team of German doctors are pissed off and ready to kick ass, and I would not want to be a little cancer cell on these guys' shit list.. believe me.

Jörg and his family (and us guys in the band) found this out only last week, after the operation. Naturally we are all going between a lot of emotions, sadness, worry, shock, confusion, even anger.

As for Stratovarius, as you perhaps know there is a long tour coming up with Helloween, and with the surgery and therapy that will now follow there is no way Jörg can do the first part of the tour. For me personally (it's Jens writing this if you didn't figure it out) I at first felt quite hopeless about the tour, because I was so upset about all this news. But Jörg himself has been extremely clear that he does not want the band to cancel a single show because of this. In the end this is what made at least me feel better about going back hitting the road next week.

So, we have debated what to do for many days now. Jörg first suggested my brother Anders to do this November-December 2010 leg, but it turns out Anders will unfortunately be busy recording some record or other with that little indie cellar band of his called HammerFall. ) After a lot of searching we found a guy that both can do it and didn't have other commitments: Alex Landenburg. He plays well, Jörg says he is a great guy (very important!) and he even started learning the set already before we even had decided what to do, which to me shows a lot of dedication. You can google Alex' name if you are curious.
So it turns out that Stratovarius will do the first leg of the Helloween Seven Sinner tour, just as planned, only not with Jörg behind the kit, but with Jörg very much as a motivator to us being there. Not one single date will be cancelled or changed. Jörg wants to be back on the road with us again as soon as possible depending on the thearapy, but we are not making any promises, that one is up to powers even higher than Jörg Michael and his doctors. We will try to keep you somewhat updated.


Anyway, the most important thing is that they think they got all the bad stuff out and that the end result is that we just fix that sentence I wrote above. We will then say:

Jörg had cancer. But he beat it.

/Jens