The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concertos by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives musical expression to a season of the year. These were composed around 1718−1720, when Vivaldi was the court chapel master in Mantua. They were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione.
Nightfall in Middle-Earth is the sixth studio album by German power metal band Blind Guardian. It was released on 28 April 1998 through Virgin Records. It is a concept album based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, a book of tales from the First Age of Middle-earth, recounting The War of the Jewels. The album contains not only songs but also spoken parts narrating parts of the story. The cover depicts Lúthien dancing in front of Morgoth.
Somewhere Far Beyond is the fourth studio album by German power metal band Blind Guardian. It was released in 1992 and produced by Kalle Trapp. The cover artwork was created by Andreas Marschall, who also drew the artwork for other Blind Guardian's releases. The album saw the band creating its own original sound, while still employing most of their speed/power metal techniques.
Symphonic metal is a cross-generic style designation for the symphonic subsets of heavy metal music subgenres. It is used to denote any metal band that makes use of symphonic or orchestral elements. The style features the heavy drums and guitars of metal with different elements of orchestral classical music, such as symphonic instruments, choirs and sometimes a full orchestra, or just keyboard orchestration.
Empyrium is a German symphonic folk/doom metal and (later) neofolk/dark folk band.
The Angel and the Dark River is the third album by the British doom/death metal band My Dying Bride. The 1996 re-release contains one bonus track "The Sexuality of Bereavement" and a bonus CD titled Live at the Dynamo. The Live CD was recorded during their appearance at the Dynamo Festival in 1995.
Dark Moor is the fourth full-length album of the Spanish power metal band Dark Moor.
WarCry is a Spanish power metal band led by founder, singer, and songwriter Víctor García. Formed in 2001 when García and drummer Alberto Ardines were ejected from Avalanch, the band has since released seven studio albums and two live albums, with an eighth studio album currently in progress. WarCry has had a fluctuating lineup with García as the sole constant member. The band has been acclaimed as one of Spain's most famous heavy metal acts and has won numerous awards in both Spain and Latin America.
The Astral Sleep is the second album from Tiamat. It marks their debut on longtime label, Century Media Records. This album was reissued in 2006 with two tracks from A Winter Shadow single, released in 1990.
Age of Ruin is an American metalcore band from Fairfax, Virginia. The group formed in 1998 and released a demo album the following year. The band's first album was self-released in 2000.
Alea Jacta Est is the third studio album by the Asturian power metal band WarCry, released on January 1, 2004, and distributed through Avispa.
Tarot is the sixth full-length album by the Spanish power metal band Dark Moor. The songs of the album are all named after the Major Arcana deck in the Tarot card game. The first single extracted from the album was "The Chariot". Manda Ophius of the Dutch symphonic metal band Nemesea is the guest female vocalist on Tarot. The final track, "the Moon", samples Ludwig van Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5" and "Moonlight Sonata". The bonus track, "Mozart's March" is based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "Rondo A'la Turca". It was also performed live in Granada, Spain, Piorno Rock, back in 2002, five years before it was even released.
El Lado Oscuro is the second studio album by power metal band DarkSun, released in 2004. The band entered the studios at the end of 2003. Just like El Legado, this album was recorded in Germany, with Ingo Cjavkoski in the production. This time the band had Dennis Ward on mixings., and Lars Ratz assisted on the vocals production. Once again the reviews were as good as they could possibly be, like "...it's a varied work, where power and heavy metal alternate and mi", and "El Lado Oscuro is a really good power metal album". Peavy Wagner performed vocals on a song, which was released as a bonus track on the album, entitled "Prisoners of Fate".
Pablo García Fernández is a guitarist, for the power metal band WarCry.
DarkSun is a Spanish power metal band from Asturias, Spain. Formed in 2002 after the split of Nörthwind, the band has since released six studio albums. DarkSun has often cited Blind Guardian, Helloween, Angra, and Rage as their biggest and most important influences.
Friday Night Lights is the debut studio album by the Scottish indie rock band Attic Lights, released on 13 October 2008 on Island Records.
Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa is the ninth studio album by English extreme metal band Cradle of Filth. It was released on 1 November 2010 by record label Peaceville and is a concept album centred on the demon Lilith. It is Cradle of Filth's only album to feature keyboardist Ashley Ellyllon, and is also the band's final album with Dave Pybus as their bass player and James McIlroy as their second guitar player.
Colours in the Dark is the fourth studio album released by Finnish vocalist Tarja Turunen. The record was released on 30 August 2013, in Austria, Brazil, Finland, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland; 2 September in Norway, Poland, and the Czech Republic; 3 September in the United States and Canada; and 4 September in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. Mixing was done by Tim Palmer in Austin, Texas in the United States. Tarja started the Colours in the Dark World Tour on 17 October 2013, to promote the album. The name of the album, as the cover image, came as a metaphor from the idea that life has a large range of colors and the dark absorbs all of them, containing every color.
Ars Musica is the ninth full-length album by the Spanish power metal band Dark Moor, released on 18 June 2013.
Beyond the Red Mirror is the tenth studio album by German power metal band Blind Guardian, released on 30 January 2015 through Nuclear Blast. It is the band's first album since 2010's At the Edge of Time, marking the longest gap between two studio albums in their career until it was surpassed by 2019's Legacy of the Dark Lands. It is also their first album without former session member Oliver Holzwarth on bass guitar since 1995's Imaginations from the Other Side, with Barend Courbois replacing him. "Twilight of the Gods" was released as a single to promote this album.
