A Twist in the Myth

A Twist in the Myth, the eighth album and the first on Nuclear Blast, came out on 1 September 2006 as NB 1515-2; Victor Entertainment had issued it in Japan two days earlier, on 30 August, as a limited first pressing (VICP-63548) and a standard edition (VICP-63549). In April 2005 the founding drummer Thomen Stauch had left; the four of them, Stauch included, agreed it was best, saying they had been developing in different musical and personal directions for some time. His place went to Frederik Ehmke, who had heard in spring 2005, at twenty-six, that his favourite band had no drummer and put himself forward. This is his first album with them. It was recorded at Twilight Hall Studios from September 2005 to April 2006, though an acute middle-ear infection of Hansi Kürsch held the sessions up and pushed back the planned world tour. The band produced it with Charlie Bauerfeind, Oliver Holzwarth played bass as a guest, and the band says it was recorded with half the tracks they had used on the previous album. According to Metal Hammer in Germany, "Carry the Blessed Home" draws on Stephen King's Dark Tower, "Otherland" on Tad Williams' science-fiction series and "Lionheart" on the Ulysses episode of Dante's Inferno. "Fly" came out ahead of the album. Kürsch told BARKS in 2006 that the alternative version they made afterwards, "Dead Sound of Misery", turned out so well that they decided to use both, and it appears on the limited edition and the Japanese first pressing. "Another Stranger Me" became a single on 4 May 2007. The album entered the charts at number four in Germany and number three in Greece, and reached number 21 on Oricon in Japan. The running order here is the original's as printed.