The Nature of Evil

The first album for Nuclear Blast, and the record the label calls the band's biggest commercial success: it reached No. 63 on the German Top 100, Sinner's first appearance on the official chart at all. AFM's German-language history describes it as the point where the band's sound turned darker and more metallic. Mat Sinner produced and Achim Köhler engineered, working at House of Music and Spacepark Studios. Ralf Scheepers sings backing vocals — this is the period in which he and Mat Sinner were starting Primal Fear. The album put Sinner on tour as special guests to Deep Purple, in front of a stated 60,000-plus, and then on the Wacken Open Air stage in 1999 before more than 20,000. Nuclear Blast's account adds that Ian Gillan thanked the band personally after the Deep Purple run and called them the best special guests of the nineties. The Japanese MVP edition, released a month ahead of Germany, ran to thirteen tracks in a quite different order and left "Darksoul" off altogether.