Virgin Black - Thrice

Australia's dark-metal-hybrid act VIRGIN BLACK will follow up their well-received 2003 offering "Elegant...and Dying" by releasing three albums simultaneously in 2006 on The End Records. Each CD is "a separate entity, but each is also linked through recurring musical themes and artistic motifs," according to a press release. "When fully unfurled in all its grandeur, listeners will experience a grandiloquent two-and-a-half hour requiem mass with three stages of evolution."

The three albums are described in the following way:

* "Requiem – Pianissimo" is an entirely classical album with instrumentation performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and featuring spectacular choral arrangements along with tenor, mezzo-soprano and soprano solo voices. "Requiem – Pianissimo" forsakes guitars and drums in favour of the melancholic tragedy and bombastic dynamics of classical composition.

* "Requiem – Mezzo Forte" is where the band joins the orchestra and strikes a balance more reminiscent of previous VIRGIN BLACK outings, albeit with greater epic breadth.

* The final album, "Requiem – Fortissimo", unleashes a sound infinitely heavier than anything in VIRGIN BLACK’s history. While still retaining an air of classical sensibility, it concludes the series with an intense dose of death/doom.

A release date for the albums has not yet been set.