Hapfairy's World: News Round-Up: Northward, AURI, Nightwish, Ayreon, Dimmu Borgir

Time once again to round up the latest news!

FLOOR JANSEN'S NORTHWARD PROJECT SIGNS TO NUCLEAR BLAST

Floor Jansen has announced the launch of her new project Northward, a collaboration with Pagan's Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad. The two met in 2008 after teaming up at Progpower Festival, and decided to write songs together. Despite writing a whole album, they were then too busy to finish it until Floor had 2017 free due to Nightwish's year off.

Floor described the music as being inspired by classic rock. She commented:

"The music is melodic, but also in-your-face and kick-ass rock. Cool riffs, good melodies and tasteful arrangements. We would simply like to call it 'good music.' We wanted to explore a basic rock sound, with drums, bass, guitar and vocals. Not the heavy layers of keyboards, choirs etc.".

After finally recording the album, they signed to Nuclear Blast, and the details and release date of the album will be released soon.

AURI RELEASE NEW SONG AND LYRIC VIDEO

AURI (the new collaboration between Tuomas Holopainen, Troy Donockley and Johanna Kurkela) have released another ethereal song from their upcoming self-titled debut, out on March 23rd. The Space Between was released with an accompany lyric video.

AURI - The Space Between (Official Lyric Video)

NIGHTWISH: SECOND DECADES TRAILER

Speaking of Tuomas Holopainen, another trailer has been released for their newest greatest hits compilation Decades, set for release on March 9th. The trailer features more interview footage with Tuomas.

Nightwish - Decades (Official Trailer #2)

AYREON: VALLEY OF THE QUEENS LIVE

Another video has been released from Ayreon's live show Ayreon Universe. This time it's for Valley of the Queens, a ballad from his 1998 album Into The Electric Castle. The song features the impressive line-up of Anneke Van Giersbergen, Floor Jansen and Marcela Bovio.

Ayreon - Valley of The Queens (Ayreon Universe)

DIMMU BORGIR: FIRST NEW SONG FROM UPCOMING ALBUM

Dimmu Borgir have released a new song from their long-awaited upcoming tenth album Eonian. Interdimensional Summit is accompanied by a full music video. The album will be released on May 4th via Nuclear Blast.