When Before The Dawn went on hiatus a little over a decade ago the chances of the band ever reuniting was slim to say the least.
Plagued by line-up changes and label problems, the band were imploding at a rapid rate, losing the most important thing of all.
Hope.
Now, fast forward a decade, and Before The Dawn return triumphant with a new vocalist and revamped line-up as well as a blistering new album Stormbringers, which was released on June 30.
Described as seeing Before The Dawn "back stronger than ever", Stormbringers is more than just another comeback album.
It is sonic proof that music will always be the victor no matter how insurmountable the odds.
Band founder Tuomas Saukkonen - in his first ever Australian interview - joined HEAVY to tell us more.
"It's been really good," he enthused of the early reception to the bands comeback album. "We were resting a little bit because... we did a few changes to the line-up. We changed the vocalist, who replaced actually two vocalists in the band - I used to be the frontman doing the growling vocals, but I started playing drums only. So there's big changes visually and also in the audio but it's been amazing so far."
We press Tuomas on the musical components of Stormbringers.
"Well, if somebody is not familiar of our previous albums, I think the Finnish melancholy plays a huge part," he replied. "We are very sad people up here in the North (laughs). If you look at Finnish bands in general the melodies they make are quite gloomy, and Before The Dawn is no exception to that. But I think we are on the most positive side of Finnish metal. Our melodic death metal is quite stage friendly and more like rock and roll oriented, if that is allowed to be said about metal in general."
In the full interview, Tuomas talks more about the album musically, their new vocalist and the unusual circumstances around which he came to be in the band, how the band has come back stronger, fears people may have forgotten about Before The Dawn during their hiatus, their upcoming tour with Wolfheart and Hinayana, Australian tour plans and more.