ALEAH STANBRIDGE

“Aleah Liane Stanbridge (born Julia Liane Stanbridge 1 July 1976 – 18 April 2016), better known mononymously as Aleah, or Aleah Starbridge, was a South African singer-songwriter based in Örebro, Sweden where she lived until her death. In 2009, she and Finnish guitarist Juha Raivio founded death/doom inspired band Trees of Eternity. Aleah became well known in the rock and metal genre for her collaborations such as Swallow the Sun and Amorphis.

After relocating to Sweden, Aleah first became known after she was featured on Swedish electronic musician Krister Linder’s “Don’t Lose Your Way” from his 2006 album Songs from the Silent Years and its remixes

Some time in 2008, Stanbridge became lead singer of an obscure band, That Which Remains.

In mid-2009, she met guitarist Juha Raivio from Swallow the Sun, who was looking for a soloist to work on the song “Lights on the Lake” for the upcoming album New Moon. The plan was to feature Aleah’s vocals on part of the song already prepared by Juha, but when they instead began to experiment with a vocal line Aleah had written for the occasion the session quickly headed off in a new direction took on a life of its own. Stanbridge and Raivio new musical collaboration project was named Trees of Eternity, a death/doom metal band with an ambient folk sound and ghostly female vocals, with Stanbridge as the vocals and lyricist, and Juha on guitars. The band worked on a four-song promo, Black Ocean and was released in 2013 on the internet with great response, as well sent limited signed physical copies to fans.

In 2012, Aleah returned as a guest for Swallow the Sun’s album Emerald Forest and the Blackbird and appeared in the music video for song “Cathedral Walls”, which featured Swedish singer Anette Olzon who was in Nightwish at the time.

In 2015, she sang as a guest on Under the Red Cloud by Finnish heavy metal band Amorphis.

The same year she was yet again on Swallow the Sun’s album Songs from the North I, II & III. Not only did she provide vocals, she also worked on the band’s photo shoot and coverart for the album.”