Roots of Blind Guardian

Helloween is a German power metal band founded in 1984 in Hamburg by members of bands Iron Fist, Gentry, Second Hell and Powerfool. The band has at times been called one of the most influential European heavy metal bands of the 1980s. Its first lineup consisted of singer and guitarist Kai Hansen, bassist Markus Grosskopf, guitarist Michael Weikath and drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg. By the time Hansen left Helloween in 1989 to form Gamma Ray, the band had evolved into a five-piece, with Michael Kiske taking over as lead vocalist. Schwichtenberg and Kiske both parted ways with Helloween in 1993; Schwichtenberg died two years later as the result of suicide. Between then and 2016, there had been numerous line-up changes, leaving Grosskopf and Weikath as the only remaining original members. As a septet, their current lineup features all of the surviving members of the Keeper of the Seven Keys lineup, in addition to the remaining members from the Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy-era.

Symphony X is an American progressive metal band from Middletown, New Jersey. Founded in 1994, the band consists of guitarist Michael Romeo, keyboardist Michael Pinnella, drummer Jason Rullo, lead vocalist Russell Allen and bassist Michael LePond.

Van Canto is a German a cappella metal band, founded in 2006 and composed of six singers and a drummer. While only two of the singers perform the lead vocals, the other four use their voices to imitate the guitars and the bass, with the help of amplifiers, in an attempt to sound closer to the original instruments. They use real drums in their music, instead of vocal percussion or beatboxing.

Nine Destinies and a Downfall is the third studio album by the Norwegian gothic metal band Sirenia. It was released on 23 February 2007 through Nuclear Blast. The enhanced CD of the digipak edition contains a bonus track, the video for the song "My Mind's Eye" and multimedia software. The music video was produced and directed by Serbian film company iCODE Team, being the first of the band. In March 2007 a second video was released, "The Other Side".