Amaranthe is a Swedish/Danish band, originated from Gothenburg, Sweden, formed in 2008 that fuses melodic metal with pop melodies. Formed by Jake E (Dreamland, Dream Evil) and Olof Mörck (Dragonland, Nightrage), the project began taking shape, when singers Elize Ryd (toured with Kamelot) and Andreas Solvestrom (Cipher System, Within Y), signed on, as did drummer Morten Løwe Sørensen (The Cleansing, Koldborn, Mercenary). Bassist Johan Andreassen (Engel) joined after the photoshoot for the Leave Everything Behind demo but before the recording of the first album Amaranthe. In May 2009, the band was forced to change their name from Avalanche due to legal issues. They later released their first demo (including 4 songs) on their MySpace page, titled Leave Everything Behind. The band's debut album, Amaranthe' was released in 2011 and reached a peak position of 35 in Sweden and 16 in Finland. The album features a combination of modern metalcore-style breakdowns, harsh screams and heavy guitar riffs with soaring clean vocals and synths reminiscent of power metal. The musical style of Amaranthe has been described as "a healthy dose of pop fused with a heavily metalcore-inspired melodic death metal sound" Their second album, The Nexus, was released in March 2013. Guitarist Olof Mörck described the album as having greater contrasts, a more controversial mix of genres, and featuring more creative freedoms than Amaranthe. According to Olof, the band "took everything to eleven" in the new album. The album reached 6th on Swedish charts, 4th on Finnish charts, and reached a peak of 12th on the US Heatseekers charts. In October 2013, vocalist Solveström left the band and was replaced by Henrik Englund Wilhemsson (Scarpoint). Their third album, Massive Addictive, was released on the 21st October 2014. A special compilation Breaking Point - B-sides 2011-2015 was released on 30th October 2015. It consists b-sides and bonus tracks from Amaranthe's career. Their fourth album, Maximalism, was released on October 21st, 2016. In November 2016, clean vocalist Jake E. announced that he would take a break from the band. In February 2017, he decided to make his departure permanent. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.