Epica - The holographic principle

After the nuisance that their previous album turned out to be, I was determined to stay away from this band. However, I made the mistake or reading and most of all trusting the reviews and gave it a try. I lost an hour of my life, I gained some laughs... I suppose it’s a decent trade in the end. I won’t be repeating the experience any time soon, though, as it seems that Epica fans have a short memory and keep saying that the current album is the best of their career, where they show maturity and creativity and some other stuff they’ve never actually shown, on this album or anywhere else. I expect the next one will also be praised as the peak of their career, just like this one and the previous and the one before that, and it will still be the same pretentious crap that they always put out. Heh...

The (not so) magical world of symphonic gothic metal

Symphonic gothic metal has always been a love of mine, to the point where I would be obsessed with it and know pretty much every band in and around the genre. With age came less spare time and more need for variety and nowadays I regularly listen only to a select few, but I still throw an eye on the rest of them from time to time. And since Epica and Xandria battled for attention on the 2^nd of May and Macbeth decided to come out of whatever hole they were hiding in, I guess it’s time to pay close attention to this genre once more.

Epica, Silver Church, 29.03.11

And I saw Epica… Man Simone sucks! I never saw her as an outstanding singer, but last night she couldn’t carry a tune for the life of her! Her operatic voice was half decent, but her chest voice sounded terrible. Hoarse, strained… the long high notes she was trying to sing were probably the worst sound I’ve ever heard coming out of the throat of a lead singer with some pretences.