TARJA TURUNEN has released the official music video for "The Trace Outlives," the third and most sonically striking preview yet from her forthcoming album Frisson Noir, due June 12 via earMUSIC. The video signals something genuinely new in Turunen's artistic direction: this is the heaviest, most uncompromising music she has released under her own name.
The track features Sayo Komada, a Japanese shamisen virtuoso who specializes in the ancient Tsugaru and Nagauta playing traditions. The collision of Komada's centuries-old stringed instrument — played with a technique that requires years of dedicated study — and Turunen's soaring operatic soprano over a thundering modern metal production creates the kind of cross-cultural, cross-genre tension that is rare in any form of music. The result is arresting: dark, cinematic, and unlike anything else in the current metal landscape.
For Turunen, the pursuit of genuine heaviness has been a long-standing ambition. "I've been looking for a really heavy sound for my albums," she explained. "My biggest knowledge is orchestral, symphonic... but I haven't been able to reach [heaviness] for album productions." Frisson Noir appears to be the album that finally bridges that gap — thanks in large part to the involvement of Grammy-winning producer and mixer Neal Avron, best known for his transformative work with LINKIN PARK, SKILLET, and DISTURBED. Avron brings a hard-edged clarity to the production that Turunen's previous solo work has not achieved.
The album's 10 tracks explore themes of fear, resilience, identity, and transformation — terrain that maps naturally onto Turunen's own story as an artist who left the world's biggest symphonic metal band and spent two decades forging an independent path. The guest roster reflects both the breadth of her vision and the respect she commands across metal's many subgenres: DANI FILTH (CRADLE OF FILTH), APOCALYPTICA, former NIGHTWISH bassist Marko Hietala, and Chad Smith (RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS) all contribute to the record.
Frisson Noir will be available in multiple formats: CD digipak, vinyl editions with copper foil stamping and embossing, signed editions, and exclusive collector's box sets. The "Frisson" live tour launches September 30 in Berlin, with a full European run to follow. For longtime fans, Frisson Noir promises to be the definitive statement of a career built on refusing the obvious path.