Cadacross

When they formed in 1997, Finland's Cadacross had it in their minds to play aggressive death metal, but after a set of poorly received demos (1997's Power of the Night and 1998's The Bloody Way) they began swerving toward accessibility, adopting increasingly melodic power metal and folk music elements that were simultaneously becoming all the rage in their homeland.

Thus transformed, Cadacross — featuring screeching vocalist Georg Laakso, guitarist Tommi Saari, keyboardist Mathias Nygård, bassist Jarkko Lemmetty, and drummer Janne Salo — made their debut with 2001's So Pale Is the Light album, which was released by the independent Low Frequency label.

Cadacross' metamorphosis was not yet complete, however, and when vocalist Laakso informed his comrades that their next album would take them even further away from their violent death metal roots, everyone in the band either quit or was fired. Unperturbed, Laakso picked up a guitar and proceeded to surround himself with new members Sami Aarnio (vocals), Tino Ahola (guitar), Jukka-Pekka Miettinen (bass), Antti Ventola (keyboards), Nina Laakso (backing vocals), and Kimmo Miettinen (drums) prior to recording 2002's epic metal opus Corona Borealis — The Northern Crown.