Epica: The Phantom Agony

The first of the symphonic metal bands I discovered was Epica, which was founded by Mark Jansen, who has previously been in one the first symphonic metal bands, After Forever. As it happened, he was dating Simone Simons at the time, who could sing, so he invited her to front the band. And damn can she sing! (Check out her performance, with Floor Jansen, of "Stabat Mater" on Retrospect.)

I'm working my way through their catalog. Having started my own listening with some more recent stuff, I've gone back to the beginning.

The first album, released in 2002, was The Phantom Agony. It opens with a statement of intent, the choral piece "Adyta", sliding smoothly into a pretty typical sort of Epica piece in "Sensorium". But things really get going with the third song, "Cry For the Moon", which seems to remain a favorite with a lot of Epicans (as fans are known). It's very much symphonic metal, with symphonic elements but a driving metal beat, Simons's gorgeous vocals backed by a choir (though her voice may be overdubbed as part of that, too). 

That song is a continuation of a song cycle, "The Embrace That Smothers" that Jansen had begun with After Forever. Wikipedia describes it as being about 'the dangers of organized religion', which would be putting it kindly. Two more parts appear hear, the rest being on The Divine Conspiracy. I mean at some point to listen to all nine parts of it together.

Much of the rest of the album has a similar theme. Indeed, the whole thing feels like a concept album, organized around a person's search for meaning and struggle with religion.

It's not a mature effort. Jansen and Simons and the others are clearly still learning to harness their compositional talents. But the highlights here are fantastic, such as title track, especially.

After Forever

This afternoon, while doing various sorts of work, I listened to the first three albums by the Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. One of the founding members of this band was Mark Jansen, who would later found Epica, and the vocalist was Floor Jansen (no relation), who is now the vocalist for Nightwish. Mark Jansen left after the second album; there were three more after that.

The first two albums are Prison of Desire and Decipher. I don't think these are quite up to what Mark Jansen would shortly do with Epica, but you can see the seeds of that music here. They do a great job integrating the orchestral elements with the rock elements, and Floor is, as always, just brilliant on vocals. (There are also growled, metal-style vocals, which Mark Jansen would continue with Epica. The contrast between these is sometimes called 'beauty and the beast'.)

The third album, Invisible Circle, is a really ambitious concept album, telling the story of an extremely dysfunctional family and how the cycle of abuse perpetuates itself. It's depressing and sad, as you'd expect, but insightful and powerful. It's not uniformly successful, but there is some pretty good stuff here. It's a bit more on the progressive metal end, with some obvious elements of bands like Yes and ELP. 

Indeed, it sometimes feels to me like Yes is a major influence (perhaps at a remove) on this stuff. A lot of the 'clean' female vocals remind me of Jon Anderson's vocal style. (Yeah, I'm very into Yes.)