News: Fall Into the Light, official video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFxH4kky6z4

I agree that live is where it's really going to be make or break.

As for the new album? It's gonna be loved by a big chunk of the fan base, will be hated by a smaller chunk of the fan base and the remainder will be somewhere in the middle. Just as is always the case, although there will probably be a bigger chunk that love it just because MP's back.

I agree on this 100%
What i can imagine is that the band will put extra effort on the album to have something that is very solid and not rush the process, to get it right.

On the live aspect, it will be interesting, since i don't see MP playing live with a click, and this is something that the band used almost all of the years with MM on the drums, to sync visuals, backing vocal tracks as well as patch changes on guitar (and maybe keys?).

Of course, James' voice is not the same in the years post-Astonishing era, and i'm pretty sure this will also have an impact on the live shows, especially if no backing tracks are used to "cover" some of the shortcomings on that front.

Maybe they'll downtune older stuff (like they did for I&W) to help James be more comfortable.
But definitely the bar is set high and the stakes are high for the band, to "keep" people who will come back due to MP rejoining.

I also think that MP has thought about various things during these years, as i recall he already had a "masterplan" when he proposed the break to DT back in 2010. So he will definitely have ideas on setlist, show presentation and various other ideas to engage with the fans.

Tempus Fugit is my favourite track off Drama, an album I hold very high in their discography (of the ones I've heard).

Awesome! I've been craving an NFO live fix!

I heard they recently signed a new deal with Napalm Records so hoping that means we'll get some album news this year.

Actually Björn did an interview with Finnish Radio Rock station, and he said that the new album has already been recorded and it's waiting to be mixed and mastered. He said that the plan is to release it early next year.

I would assume that we get a new single this year though.

Here is the link to the interview. Interview is in English, but I don't know if it will work outside of Finland.

https://www.supla.fi/episode/8391bce1-8881-4891-8cca-72c9d99f0df5

Well yeah, which is why they had to step in and make digital albums that cost less or their own fairer model of streaming before absolutely everyone got on the "mp3s are to be downloaded off the internet for free" train. These by and large are the same people who now pay the 11 dollars a month to Spotify, so clearly there's still money to be made in digital distribution of music and those mp3s weren't valueless after all. But they wanted to hang on to the 18 dollar CD and thought they'd get the people back into 18 dollar CDs by lawsuits and wagging fingers. Now we have travelling T-shirt salesmen and you can't really get a tour with decent breaks included even if you're a 60-year-old vocalist who's done this for 30 years in a rock band.

I don’t think those people are paying for Spotify now. They just use the free subscription probably, which is why Spotify itself is not profitable.

They had portable TVs in the 70s…and local stations playing old movies were really common.