For five years, till year 2001, was Martjin Westerholt a member of famous Netherland's symphonicmetal group Within

Temptation. Because of chronic Pfeiffer's disease, he left the band. Luckily, he didn't give up on music and started with writing songs for himself. In the end, he thought of a new project called, after a kingdom in Stephen King's 'The Eyes of Dragon', Delain. At first, he envisioned it as a project involving many of his talented musician friends in the Symphonic Metal Community like Marco Hietala (Nightwish), Sharon den Andel (Within Temptation), Liv Kristine (Leave's Eyes) or George Oosthoek. Those were, except for the original members (Ronald Land, Ray van Lente, Rob van der Loo and Sander Zoer),supported by more musicians: guitarist Ad Sluijter (ex-Epica), Jan Yrlund (ex-Lacrimosa) and Guus Eikens (exOrphange) and drummer Arien van Weesenbeek (Epica). This project, however, was open to a relatively unknown young and talented singer Charlotte Wessels(ex-To Elysium), whom contributed with most of vocals. Martjin asked her for writing lyrics for several songs , but she surprised him with her singing. After searching for a singer in whole country, Martjin found her in his neighbourhood. 2006 In 2005 Delain signed a contract with Roadrunner Records.Soon after, they started with recording their debut - Lucidity in Germany, Finland, Sweden and Netherlands together with Oliver Philipps. Martjin took care of production and Stefen Hellablad (opeth, Rammstein, Dark Funeral) made the final mix. Releas of this album was accompanied by first single 'Frozen', which had most elements used in other songs: catchy chorus, heavy riffs, guitar solos, choirs but also a melodic fraction. Later this single got a video clip, which was recorded with Alex Diezinger (Video clips for Helloween, Declan, Krypteria etc.) as a director. Lucidity CONTAINS interesting duets, like Liv Kristine singing with Marco Hietala in song 'Day for Ghosts' or with Charlotte in 'See Me In Shadow', Marco's intense voice was complemented with charactaristic voice of Sharon den Andel in song 'No Compilance', and growling of George Oosthoek again complements with Charlotte's calming voice. Month after release, the band got awarded with Essent Award, thanks to which they got 5 000 for promotion, attention of medias and opportunity to appear on Netherland's music festival Noorderslag. 2007-2008 Next year Delain did a tour through whole Netherlands. During this year they got nominated for TMF Award (Netherlands) in category Best rock, where they competed with Within Temptation, Direct and Heideroosjes. Also they got nominated for MTW Awards (Netherlands) in category New Sound of Europe. In August Ray van Lente decided to leave the group because of personal reasons. However Delain did not try to find a replacement and went on with 5 members. At the end of year they started to plan releasing a second album. During next year listeners could listen to two new songs, 'Start Swimming' and 'Stay Forever', which were introduced live. Song 'I'll Reach You was introduced on Netherlands TV as a support for UNICEF, and occurred on the actual album with a different lyrics.