April Rain

April Rain is the second studio album by Dutch symphonic metal band Delain. It was released in the Benelux on 20 March 2009 and was released internationally on 30 March 2009 by Roadrunner Records. It was released in Australia on 10 April 2009.

History
Martijn Westerholt, founder of Delain, originally did not intend Delain to be a live band. But after the success of debut album Lucidity a live band was created which recorded the album April Rain. While Delain's previous album Lucidity featured many guest appearances, this album has only two: Maria Ahn, cellist from the Ahn Trio and Finnish singer Marko Hietala, who was featured on multiple tracks of Lucidity as well. "Virtue and Vice" is the only song on April Rain containing death growls performed by guitarist Ronald Landa, who also contributes clean vocals on "Invidia".

Demo versions of "Stay Forever" and "Start Swimming" were already played live by Delain in 2007 and 2008. In November 2008, a version of the song "I'll Reach You" with alternate lyrics was performed live on a Dutch TV show to get attention for UNICEF & BT's "Inspiring Young Minds" charity.

The original release date for the album was 9 February 2009, but in January it was announced that the release was postponed to coincide with foreign release dates.

In February 2009, "April Rain" was revealed to be the first single from this album when it became available for purchase online.

On 13 March 2009, the Dutch website of Roadrunner Records put the entire album up for streaming, only available to residents of the Netherlands.

In October 2009, "Stay Forever" was announced as the second single from the album.

Personnel
Delain
 * Charlotte Wessels – vocals
 * Ronald Landa – guitars, vocals on track 3 and 6, backing vocals
 * Martijn Westerholt – keyboards, production
 * Rob van der Loo – bass guitar
 * Sander Zoer – drums

Additional musicians
 * Marko Hietala – vocals on tracks 4 and 11
 * Maria Ahn – cello on tracks 5 and 6
 * Guus Eikens – guitars on tracks 4, 5, 6 and 8
 * Oliver Philipps – guitar on all tracks except 6, orchestrations, production

Production
 * Jacob Hansen – engineering, mixing
 * Mark Jansen – photography
 * Joachim Ehrig – mastering
 * Dennis van der Meule – art direction, design
 * Hans de Ruiter – art direction, design