Blabbermouth said:Netherlands-based gothic/progressive metal band STREAM OF PASSION, which is fronted by Mexican female vocalist Marcela Bovio (AYREON), has entered the studio to begin recording its sophomore album, due in early 2009 via Napalm Records. According to a posting on the group's MySpace page, "To stick to their traditional distributed and de-centralized way of working, the band is making use of different studios and locations to create the sound they're looking for. Joining the team are renowned Dutch producers Joost van den Broek (AFTER FOREVER) and Jochem Jacobs (TEXTURES). The combination of their influences is just what the band was looking for: heavy and powerful on one side, atmospheric and melodic on the other."
STREAM OF PASSION guitarist Eric Hazebroek has issued the following studio update:
"With the drums recorded in record-breaking time it was up to the guitar players to enter the Split Second Sound Studio in Tilburg and lay down the huge wall of distorted (and sometimes not-so-distorted) sound. With two guitar players, it's always a matter of getting everything in sync and in the same key. So during the entire pre-production, we fiddled around with the details until every note was correct and played in such a way that it became tight as a really, really tight thing.
Read more here.
I'm really looking forward to seeing where this band takes things now that Arjen is not with them anymore.
I love Marcela's voice and really enjoyed her writing on Embrace the Storm, so I'm hoping that the band's sophomore album is going to live up to the first. It sounds like the band is really concerned about all the fine details on this one and I can't say I blame them. I wonder how closely they are concentrating on mirroring some of Arjen's writing style vs. rising above the place of "Arjen's brainchild" that many fans have already set for the band. It will be interesting, as singles and what not are released, to see how the new songs develop and what new or similar directions Stream of Passion might choose to take.
