DELAIN — the Dutch gothic rock/metal project founded by ex-WITHIN TEMPTATION keyboardist Martijn Westerholt (brother of WITHIN TEMPTATION's Robert Westerholt) — will embark on a headlining tour of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in April. Dates for the trek, which is being sponsored by the German metal magazine Sounds2move.de, are as follows:

April 16 - Hamburg, GER @ MarX
April 17 - Berlin, GER @ Knaack
April 18 - Leipzig, GER @ Hellraiser
April 19 - Köln, GER @ Underground
April 21 - Frankfurt, GER @ Nachtleben
April 22 - Ludwigsburg, GER @ Rockfabrik
April 23 - Ingolstadt, GER @ Paradox
April 24 - München, GER @ Backstage
April 25 - Wien, AUT @ Szene
April 27 - Zürich, SWI @ Dynamo

Video footage of DELAIN performing a new song entitled "I'll Reach You" on the Dutch TV channel RTL7 on November 23, 2008 can be viewed below. The track will appear on the group's second album, "April Rain", which will be released on February 9 via Roadrunner Records.

"April Rain" follows the successful 2006 debut "Lucidity", which sky-rocketed the career of the band in their home country of The Netherlands. "The new album is a real group effort, that's what we're most proud of," says Martijn Westerholt.

DELAIN has been Westerholt's project from the start and the debut, "Lucidity", was recorded with a star-studded cast of musical friends. He says, "The album was never meant to be played live, but the demand was strong, so we eventually got a live band together. That's the band we've recorded 'April Rain' with. Compared to 'Lucidity', I'd say that this album musically is more coherent and consistent because of the fact that it was recorded all the way through by the same musicians. Production-wise, this album has more of a metal feel to it, as opposed to the more 'poppy' production of 'Lucidity'. Also, the songs tend to be a bit faster. Less 'doomy' than on our debut. That said, that album was never intended to be played live and when performing we all felt that these kind of songs were missing in our repertoire. We can't wait to go out and play these new songs on stage! Another big difference is that there are almost no guest appearances on this album. There's only NIGHTWISH vocalist Marco Hietala, whom we also worked with on 'Lucidity', providing guest vocals on the song 'Control The Storm'."