Its seems that Finish symphonic metal stalwarts Nightwish have begun the recording process for their tenth studio album, which tentatively be released on 2024. This past Sunday, Nightwish's social media was updated with a photo of keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen and drummer Kai Hahto in the studio, along with the following message: "Recording album 10 is underway!".
In an recent interview with Metal Hammer, the band's leader Tuomas Holopainen revealed the the follow-up to their 2020's "Human. :II: Nature." would be the third installment of a trilogy that started with with their 2015's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful" album: "I immediately knew after getting Endless Forms Most Beautiful done that, 'Okay, we have to do more songs about this, because there's so much more to explore and tell the world. We're not done with this.' And the same thing happened after Human. :II: Nature.; we're still not done. So let's do one more. At least one more. In a way, [the next album] is the third part of a trilogy, which started with Endless Forms… and then Human. :II: Nature. There are some major surprises there again, but it feels like a natural continuation to Human. :II: Nature.'"
It also seems that the yet to be named album has been demoed for a while now, which will probably give the band additional time to tweak things to fulfill their vision: "The wonderful thing is that we have had the demo [of the album] done since last spring. So it's been done for six months now. We really have all the time in the world to go through it all, and we have had a such great time with the band, just listening to the demo in our hotel rooms — me singing the lyrics and the melodies to Floor Jansen, vocals. She's recording them and then she's seeing them and throwing ideas to each other" added Holopainen.
According to Nightwish vocalist Floor Jansen the new album will crank up the heaviness department. And we even know how many songs are gonna be included, according to a band's statement from when they announced they will go into a tour hiatus: "An album of 12 new songs will see bright daylight in 2024, as will 3 music videos! The band is positively hyped beyond words over this new upcoming musical adventure."