TDW to release new album "Fountains"

Dutch progressive metal band TDW will release their eighth album Fountains on November 26th 2020 via Layered Reality Productions.

Spurred on by an all too familiar worldwide pandemic and an urge to keep moving forward after releasing the well-received album The Days The Clock Stopped in December of 2020, main songwriter Tom de Wit took the possibility to quickly write new material that would become this very record. Written, recorded and produced in a record tempo for Tom’s standards, but also fueled by a very special ingredient… Song input from the fans who preordered the last album and helped to make it all possible!

Multiple songs on this new offering are based on suggestions given by TDW fans in 2020 when they preordered The Days The Clock Stopped Tom told the fans that if they gave him a subject and basic idea, he would write a song based on those ideas and 6 songs on this album came to be based on these very concepts. Added to this were 4 songs written by Tom that all formed a loose theme tying everything together. And specially after the heavy, concept-driven approach of its predecessor, this felt like a fresh start with new ideas coming from many directions. As a result, Fountains has become an eclectic collection of songs that touches upon the familiar symphonic, progressive TDW sounds and themes, but also expands it. Flowing rapidly from angular electronics and weird tonal switches to flamenco infused breaks to swing-jazz cabaret metal and everything in between. The songs might seem a bit more concise this time around (except for the closing epic “Hope Song II”) but there’s no shortage of ideas on display. Instead this vinyl length offering can be seen as a fountain of ideas that is ready to be dived into.

When asked about the theme of the album, Tom described it as follows: “This album has a few themes that form its framework. We have been through the wringer as creators & mankind in general, so I made songs about staying hopeful even when life beats you down, understanding the human value of real art over just blindly staring at sales numbers and marketing and more. My life has been a constant, crusade against hollow art made for profit only. The highest goal for me is to make something that invokes a real response. I think this represents that to the fullest. People often get sidetracked by the business side of things, but at the end of the day it’s our creative fountain that keeps us going. Yes, you have to take your career seriously, yes you have to think of these things, but for me the music and the creative adventure ALWAYS comes first.”