Austria's VISIONS OF ATLANTIS have issued the following:

"According to all the rumors out there and the speculation, here's the official statement right from the band about the news within the VoA-Family!

It's right, Joanna Nieniewska was forced to leave the band a few weeks ago! The reason is a health-problem which should not be specified more detailed, but makes it impossible for her to complete a whole show on stage without risk.

But because of the grown big friendship within the band during the last months the band is not willing for her to leave totally and so we came to the point that at least Joanna has to be on the road with us when she can't sing with the band anymore and so in future she'll be on tour with us, helping us backstage and doing other important things to bring her support and energy into the band, although it's another way now!

There are no other reasons besides that, although we already had to read different stories on the internet, which are simply not true. As long as you can't read it on the offical VoA-homepage or MySpace, it's absolutely not official and does not come directly from the band or the nearest band-environment!!!

But now for the good news:

The good news besides all that is, that we were able to find an absolute suitable substitute for Joanna within the extremely short time! Her name is Maxi Nil, she's from Greece and she has already worked with MOONSPELL for instance and brings fresh energy and enthusiasm into the band! She was very fast in practising the material for the shows on Metalcamp and with TARJA TURUNEN and we are already looking forward happily in doing future shows and tours with her!

Because of all those things, the recordings for the new VoA-album are delayed a bit at the moment, but we did much work between the live shows now and so we're very optimistic to finish pre-production very soon. Afterwards we'll finally enter the studio to record our fourth album.

We hope that you all welcome Maxi Nil warmly as the newest member of Visions of Atlantis and that you can understand us and our decision, which is the best for everyone involved!"