Nightingale

Nightingale is a stalwart Swedish progressive metal band that integrates elements of gothic, hard rock, and melodic progressive rock throughout its discography, which ranges from their debut album The Breathing Shadow (1995) to Retribution (2015), and includes various anniversary remasters released in the 2020s. Nightingale began as a side project for noted Swedish singer/guitarist Dan Swano, famous for his work as frontman with death metal troupe Edge of Sanity, and an active participant, both as musician and producer, in countless important releases by other key groups in Scandinavia's bustling metal scene. Having composed a wealth of non-metal material (ranging from progressive, to gothic, to straight-up hard rock) over the years, Swano proceeded to record a two album set under the Nightingale name, starting with 1995's The Breathing Shadow (which he recorded in just a week, performing all instrumentation himself) and concluding with the following year's aptly named The Closing Chronicles. He then briefly resumed his duties with Edge of Sanity before branching out as a full-time producer and solo artist (releasing 1998's Moontower), and then drafted his brother Tom Nouga (guitars) to help him resurrect Nightingale with the year 2000's simply titled I. Two years later, the duo returned with a supposedly fixed band format comprising bassist Erik Oskarsson and drummer Tom Bjorn for Alive Again: The Breathing Shadow Part IV. The group continued through the 2000s with a handful of releases, including Invisible (2004), White Darkness (2007), Retribution (2014), and a live album, Rock Hard Live (2017), which ran parallel to Swano's production work with artists like Opeth, Katatonia, Dissection, and Bloodbath. In 2024, Nightingale began issuing remasters of all of their early works. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi