Dutch symphonic metal giants, Epica, recently announced the release of their new album Omega, out on February 26 via Nuclear Blast. Omega is the band's first studio album in five years.

Last Friday, Epica released the first single and video clip from the album, "Abyss Of Time" (see below), which was viewed on YouTube over a million times within its first week. Today, the band reveals a drum playthrough video for "Abyss Of Time".

Drummer Ariën van Weesenbeek comments: "Here’s the drum playthrough from the abyss!! During the shooting, I hit and kicked the crap out of my kit for a fat and heavy sound, and I’m very happy to launch the drums-up-close of our opening track from our latest album 'Omega'! All you Epicans; enjoy and bang your heads!!"

Omega will be available in the following formats:

- CD Jewelcase

- 2 CD Jewelcase In Slipcase (U.S. Edition)
  32p booklet
  Regular CD
  Acoustic CD

- 2 CD Digibook
  32p booklet
   Regular CD
  Acoustic CD

- 4 CD Earbook  (Limited to 3500)
  48p Earbook
  Acoustic CD
  Orchestral CD
  Instrumental CD

- Vinyl-Box (Limited to 1500)
  4CD Earbook
  2LP Picture Disc
  Golden Necklace with Ankh symbol

- 2 LP
  Black
  Blue / Green Swirl (Limited to 2000)
  Beer / Bone Swirl (Limited to 300)
  White (Limited to 300)
  Turquoise / Black Marbled (Limited to 1600)
  White / Blue Splatter (Limited to 300)
  Transparent Red (Limited to 400)
  Transparent Orange (Limited to 300)
  White / Gold Splatter (Limited to 200)
  Glow-In-The-Dark (Limited to 200)

Pre-order the album in the format of your choice here. Pre-save here.

About the new album, Mark Jansen comments: "I am very proud of this album, as I am convinced we have written a very refreshing and well-balanced album even after so many years of existence. Our strength is that we have many great songwriters in one band. We have managed to combine each other's strongest qualities and select the best songs. It was a fruitful period of spending time together to work as one team on those tracks. I think this has made the biggest difference compared to our previous albums. Still using the advantages of comfortably sending files by the internet to each other but combining that with coming physically together again to work on all the tracks. I think I have listened to 'Omega about 50 times already and still can't get enough of it!"

Omega tracklisting:

"Alpha - Anteludium
"Abyss Of Time - Countdown To Singularity"
"The Skeleton Key"
"Seal of Solomon"
"Gaia"
"Code Of Life"
"Freedom - The Wolves Within"
"Kingdom Of Heaven, Part 3 - The Antediluvian Universe"
"Rivers"
"Synergize - Manic Manifest"
"Twilight Reverie - The Hypnagogic State"
"Omega - Sovereign Of The Sun Spheres"

"Abyss Of Time" video:

Epica is:

Simone Simons - vocals
Isaac Delahaye - guitars
Mark Jansen - guitars, grunts, screams
Coen Janssen - synths, piano
Ariën van Weesenbeek - drums
Rob van der Loo - bass