Wind Rose have announced that Federico Gatti is leaving after almost eight years behind the drums. No replacement has been named.
The statement is four lines long. "This goodbye comes simply from having different visions on the next steps," the band wrote, "and it comes with nothing but gratitude and respect." They signed it with the three remaining members' first names, which is a small thing that tells you the split happened in a room rather than on a lawyer's desk.
Eight years covers the period in which this band went from an Italian power metal act to a touring proposition with an audience that sings the choruses in languages the band did not write them in.
A drummer leaving a band at that point is a bigger practical problem than it sounds. Whoever takes the seat has to learn a catalogue built on exactly the kind of fast, precise playing that does not forgive a stand-in.