During an interview with Project Backstage, Apocalyptica co-founder Eicca Toppinen revealed the band has new music in the works. They are gearing up to release a new single, and are working on a studio album.

Toppinen: "There's always new music. The latest release is 'Rise Again' with Simone Simons (Epica), and we are working on another vocal song now with a European female singer. Hopefully it will come out in the summer. And then we also start to record a new album in May. It will be out sometime late next year. Because we are constantly on tour, so we are doing the album in between the tours in a couple of different periods. I can't reveal the concept yet, but it's gonna be a concept album, and it's gonna be interesting. It's been exciting to kind of prepare the material for it. But we are constantly [putting out new music]; let's say there's four releases every year."

"The collaborations don't stop!," begins a message from Apocalyptica issued back in March. "We captured our performance of 'Rise Again' with Simone Simons of Epica in London. Check out the performance and then come out to one of our remaining tour dates and if you're lucky we'll perform it together for you!"

In support of the start of the second leg of their successful European tour, Epica and Apocalyptica teamed up for a unique collaboration on the atmospheric ballad, "Rivers", that they recorded live during the first leg of the Epic Apocalypse Tour, at Amsterdam’s AFAS Live in front of more than 5,000 fans.

“To play with these legendary musicians on our biggest indoor show in the Netherlands was a dream come true “, comments Coen Janssen and Mark Jansen adds: “To perform with Apocalyptica added an extra layer of pure magic to the song. Not only are these guys great musicians but also on a personal level, we match very well with these lovely people. Therefore, it was particularly special to perform ‘Rivers’ with them and we are very proud to present you the result of this collaboration in the form of our live performance.”

Stream the new single here, and watch the video below. The clip was shot by the team at Panda Production and edited by Jens de Vos.

Photo by Ville Juurikkala