THE DIVINE CONSPIRACY

This is Epica's newest studio album and it marks the defining moment in their young careers (At the moment at least). The band's drummer of several years had left and for this 3rd/4th official studio album, Arien Van Weesenbeek of God Dethroned steps into Jeroen Simons' shoes. This album clearly marks a slight change in direction in the band's sound. The sound is more veering towards Progressive Symphonic Metal and there are parts in songs like Fools of Damnation and the album's title track where the sound strays away from the Symphonic Metal subgenre of Metal into more Progressive tendencies. Also, the album's extremely nice use of synthesizers, symphonic arrangements and choral vocals create a contrast between Mark Janssen's coarse and extreme brutal growls and the band's constant use of "Death Metal breakdowns". This album is no normal Symphonic Metal album, this album sets the band far apart from the competition and is most definitely, the most complete and best Epica release yet.

This also ranks as one of my favorite albums of 2007!

4.4/5

Oh .. finally I got a chance to listen to this album by a band that I have known the name before but never got a chance to listen to it by my own ears. At first spin, the music could easily infuse into my ears and my mind and in fact I did enjoy it so I made couple of spins to get familiar with the music. It's not that difficult for me because the music is similar to any symphonic power metal bands : Kamelot, Nightwish, Within Temptation, or in fact Sonta Arctica even though each of the band has its own musical characteristic. The vocal quality of Simone Simons can be compared to (was) Nightwish' Tarja Turunen even though Simone is in soprano style. Overall, the music is tight in terms of composition and overall flow of songs in the album. Each song has catchy notes in terms of melody on vocal line as well as solo. The symphonic style with layers of keyboard are prevalent throughout the songs contained in this album plus some vocal harmonies and choirs.

As usual with power metal bands, the album starts with an overture through "Indigo - prologue" (2:05) followed by a blast of power metal music on "The Obsessive Devotion" (7:13). The double pedal bass drums bring the music in fast tempo with keyboard based rhythm section followed by heavy riffs provided by bass guitar that let Simone vocal to enter backed by male vocal in growling style which makes the music more powerful. At minute 3:00 there is a short break where keyboard provides string section in eastern music style. The music interlude starts on 3:45 with string arrangement followed by guitar work and a music blast augmented by choirs and growling vocal. The music turns into higher tone at the ending part.

"Menace of Vanity" (4:13).kicks off nicely with keyboard solo in string section followed by heavy riffs and music with fast tempo combining double pedal bass drums as beat keeper and bass guitar augmented beautifully by keyboard in symphonic style. The choirs and vocal harmonies work really well in this track. "Chasing the Dragon" (7:40) provide a break to a mellow style music with beautiful symphonic arrangements especially on keyboard work. At approx 5:10 the music moves into a grandiose part and followed by fast tempo music that makes it energetic.

"Never Enough" (4:47) is a very beautiful song especially the excellent opening which basically is a combination of heavy riffs by guitar and string arrangement using keyboard augmented by drums and bass guitar. Wonderful opening and it then flows to vocal line with catchy melody. I swear I like this simple song, really! Simple and it produces great energy for me. Wow! I love the riffs man ."jeg - e - jeg - jeg - jeg " ..oh my God .. I love it, really! I also love how the vocal sings this melodic track. At 2:50 the music moves higher with female chanting and makes it a grandiose composition. Bravo, Epica! I do love this piece of music, in its entirety!

"La'petach Chatat Rovetz - the Final Embrace" (1:46) explores acoustic guitar in ambient nuance with nice textures reminiscence of eastern music, especially when percussion enters the music. It's so captivating - especially when I play my amplifier outloud. This is like an opening of a movie. It suddenly moves into a full blast of music in very fast tempo overlaid by powerful metal in "Death of a Dream - the Embrace that Smothers part" VII (6:03). The keyboard is in a style of eastern music. The music flows in high energy and heavy riffs. "Living a Lie - the Embrace that Smothers part VIII" (4:56) is a heavy music with growling male vocal followed by female melodic vocal.

What a coincidence when I was driving to the local FM Station (Trijaya) for a Saturday Night Rock program with a theme of "Religious Side of Progressive Rock" I played this album in my car. When it reached track 9 "Fools of Damnation - the Embrace that Smothers part IX" (8:42) I was surprised with the fact that this song captures Muslim's Prayer Call (adzan) in the middle of the track "Asyhadualla illa ha ill Allah ." (There is only One God - Allah) which made my driving a very pleasurable one and , in fact, my adrenalin was running faster when I heard this song. If I knew this song before I made the setlist I would have probably included this track in the program. Never mind, for next program.

"Beyond Belief" (5:25) is a heavy music in fast tempo followed by mellow and beautiful melody of "Safeguard to Paradise" (3:46) with nice piano work at intro part. Simone enters her vocal brilliantly. I find Simone vocal is similar to Sally Oldfield in this song. "Sancta Terra" (4:57) starts brilliantly with heavy string arrangements followed by heavy riffs which feature female vocal singing.

"The Divine Conspiracy" (13:56) concludes this album wonderfully with great orchestration, catchy melody during singing, great breaks between segments and also tight composition. The key strength is basically its tight composition, combining many styles. The band is genius because this composition is masterpiece, in my opinion. Why? The flow the music is interesting, it's like an epic and moves in different kind of styles and moods. I believe this song will satisfy most of you adore symphonic power metal music, it's really a wonderful track.

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

On the face of things, Epica seems like many other groups, a power metal band with a classically trained female lead singer and a guitarist that does death metal growls, however this band is a step up from all those other groups because of one thing, the composition and orchestration of the songs. Many bands use the full orchestra sample to add to the depth of the sound in a song, but in Epica's case they use it as an integral piece of the music in an intelligent fashion, its not there just to provide the big grandiose sweeps but to add real depth and complexity to the music, used at its best on The Obsessive Devotion, Fools of Damnation and The Divine Conspiracy. A middle Eastern touch to many of the songs adds a unique feel to it as well. After becoming familiar with this album I can honestly say that Simone Simons is the most impressive female singer that I've heard, using her rich voice in the operatic style to its fullest whilst still remaining fully intelligible, something that I find is sometimes missing from that other famous operatic metal singer, Tarja of Nightwish. This is also one of the most captivating albums I have heard in the Progressive Metal category (not including the Experimental/Post metal and Tech/extreme genres) for a long time, something I put down to the combination of Simons singing and the aforementioned compositional strengths of the band, the music wasn't at all predictable in short and not a hint of the pretension that could have easily accompanied the orchestra.

That's not to say that this album is perfect as their are some faults. Firstly is the male vocals of Mark Jansen. At times he can sound rather good with that growling voice of his, really fitting into the music, but at times it can stray dangerously close to being terrible and just not fitting in properly. I cant help feeling that a deeper vice from someone like Kamelot's Roy Khan or Symphony X's Russel Allen would have worked much better for a decent amount of the male vocal lines, of which there are quite a few. The other major fault is in some of the musicianship. Its not that the band are low quality players reaching above their ability, because they do demonstrate in numerous places on the album that they can play very well, its just that they choose to play in a much less technically challenging way than they could, and this is something that I would really like to see them do. Overall, though, an excellent album and well worth every penny.

I was expecting another power-metal-with-progressive-elements band a la AFTER FOREVER here, with a female singer and the casual use of orchestras. But I was partially wrong.

EPICA surely plays power-metal, but the progressive elements are much more evident here than in many other similar bands. First, the songs are intelligently written, with a few of almost epic length and with structures that, if traditional, tend to at least fool the listener into thinking they're quite different. Second, the orchestra and choir here are not used as a gimmick or mere background but as an integral part of the sound, sometimes even adding to the riffs. Think on a more power-metal version of THERION. The mixing of the metal and orchestral elements really creates a band that deserves to be called progressive.

Much has been said about Simone Simons' vocals, and I have to agree in this case: her voice is fantastic. Mixing the operatic with the more pop-oriented, Simons delivers an excellent performance and a great contrast for Mark Jansen, who does all the growling in the record. It's important to notice that, again, we're not in the presence of a mere gimmick here. The dark vocals have a lot of importance in the record, carrying some vital sections either in the way of low-pitched death growling or its higher black metal variation. Jansen shows skills in being able to switch between the two at ease, but in the end, of course, he's completely overshadowed by Simons beautiful voice. She can carry a melody in any direction. She can soothe you with her peaceful chant or encourage you with her heroic cry; force you to imagine a lonely, blue lake or a lavish, red Opera stage.

The music is very riff-driven, with several power-metal elements like double-bass drums and epic choruses, but scattered throughout the disc are sections of outstanding beauty but also of sudden violence, where the music, for a few seconds, borders on death or black metal.

The obvious influences here are female-fronted bands like AFTER FOREVER or even NIGHTWISH, power-prog bands like SYMPHONY X or KAMELOT, but also some less-obvious ones as AYREON and THERION or even Hollywood music like Jerry Goldsmith's "The Omen" soundtrack. The musicianship is top-notch, with excellent performances of all the artists involved, even though the real star here is the vocalist, followed closely by the interaction of guitars and orchestra in a way that seems coherent, necessary, and which works perfectly. The good alternation of fast-and-energetic songs with quiet interludes (a few even with some oriental melodies) is another success.

In the end, we have a very good album that shares some of the mistakes that other bands in this style make in their works (similar songs, simple structures, virtuosic-yet-not-creative performances, cheesy latin-language intros). But the experience is a highly enjoyable one, the virtues overcome the flaws by far, and ultimately the album satisfies the listener. This is excellently-crafted power-prog-metal music, and an excellent if not essential addition to your collection.

No scrimping

While "The divine conspiracy" is numerically Epica's fourth album, we should consider it their third, as "The score" sits apart as an orchestral soundtrack. Released in 2007, maintaining a pattern of presenting their albums every odd year, this is a collection to satisfy those who were impressed by "The Phantom Agony" and "Consign to oblivion".

The main difference here when comparing the album to its predecessors is that the tracks have been developed more fully, the running times tending to be noticeably longer. The opening "The obsessive devotion" for example, when combined with the "Indigo" prologue, runs to an impressive 9 minutes. The piece immediately draws upon all the artillery Epica are renown for using, with orchestration, operatics and growling all combining in a veritable cacophony. The growling is a bit more intrusive throughout the album than we are used to, but it is sufficiently well disguised by the bombastic arrangements.

"Menace of vanity" features some of the most impressive chorales from Epica to date, the song being even more over the top than "The obsessive devotion". "Chasing the dragon" slows things right down at first, starting out as a gentle vocal piece before developing into a fine power ballad. Simone Simons offer one of her captivatingly emotional performances here as this epic piece twists through various moods before closing in a climactic burst. "Never enough" is a more orthodox song with a relatively straightforward composition being enhanced by a magnificent arrangement.

Four consecutive tracks in the middle of the album continue the "Embrace That Smothers" theme which last graced the band's debut. Here we have parts 7 to 9, preceded by their own mini-overture, "La'petach Chatat Rovetz - the Final Embrace". Part 7, "Death of a Dream" brings the growling to the fore a bit too much for my tastes, although thankfully it is again only used briefly. The piece is more than rescued by Simons' fine vocals and some excellent orchestration. "Living a lie" continues in a similar tempo and mood while featuring more impressive chorales. The final part of this play within a play, "Fools of damnation" alters the mood somewhat by introducing a distinctly eastern atmosphere. The track soon breaks out as a pulsating epic metal song running to almost 9 minutes. This song has more in common with bands such as Symphony X than the usual comparisons with the likes of Nightwish and Within Temptation. It is generally heavier with a greater focus on the guitar riffs and pounding drums.

"Beyond belief" returns us to the more accessible power rock of their previous albums, although the track still includes a number of twists and turns along the way. "Safeguard to Paradise" is the first genuine ballad on the album, Simons offering a touching vocal accompanied by piano and sympathetic orchestration. "Sancta Terra" maintains the slower tempo, building to some fine operatic choruses.

The album closes with the 14 minute title track, a piece which reminds me a lot of Rhapsody's most indulgent, and thus most impressive numbers. The piece weaves its way through pretty much every style and sound the band have incorporated on the album thus far. The centre piece of the track is an eclectic instrumental passage ranging from cinematic orchestration to the first genuine if all too brief burst of lead guitar we have had.

With a running time of over 75 minutes, no one could accuse Epica of scrimping. The extreme length of the album is due not only to an abundance of material, but to the full development of that material. Those who enjoy the band's style of epic metal in limited doses would be well advised to avoid listening to the album as a complete piece; unlike may prog albums, it does not demand to be listened to in that way. For those who enjoy their epic metal a bit on the heavier side, while retaining all the bombast and pomposity which defines it, here we have the ideal album.

Epica's "The Divine Conspiracy" is another one of those orchestral metal albums with an operatic female vocalist in the same vein as Nightwish, Within Temptation and After Forever's style. In this case the female vocalist is Simone Simons and she is as accomplished a singer as Tarja or Sonja. The album is conceptual running tracks together and keeping a thematic content dealing with life, eternity, existence, good and evil. The opening track 'Indigo' is more or less a lush orchestral introduction to usher in the heavier tracks to come. The majestic structure prepares us for the onslaught of metal power riffing guitars and fast blasts of thrash on 'The Obsessive Devotion'. This is a sublime track with gorgeous strings overlayed with metal hooks, very brutal, haunting and dark. This is followed by 'Menace of Vanity'; a mediocre chanting carries it along and both Simons and Jansen take turns at vocals. 'Chasing the Dragon' follows, a beautiful balladic song with sweeping piano arpeggios and a minimalist soundscape.

'Never Enough' is a pop oriented track driven by Simons scintillating vocals and could easily be a single. 'La'petach Chatat Rovetz - the Final Embrace' is an orchestrated introduction to the next track, acting as a transition. 'Death of a Dream - the Embrace that Smothers part VII' is a 6 minute fast paced, heavy track that is majestic and uplifting.

'Living a Lie - the Embrace that Smothers part VIII' continues the multi part epic but the piece de resistance is definitely the wonderful 'Fools of Damnation - the Embrace that Smothers part IX'. This section has many time signature changes and some inspired instrumental breaks. The incredible blend of symphonic ambience and heavy riffing distortion works well. There are shades of light and dark between the soft soprano vocals from Simons and the caustic growling from Jansen.

'Beyond Belief' is a brilliant mix of operatic vocals, orchestra and crunching guitars. The excellent track ends on a heartbeat effect segueing to the hypnotic, haunting Gothic 'Safeguard to Paradise' that showcases Simons' crystalline vocals, an absolutely beautiful treasure.

'Sancta Terra' follows with symphonic horns and strings. It is mostly Simons singing and has slow passages mixed with blitzing fast metrical patterns, with many time shifts in pace and choral sections. The choral ensemble give the track a Gothic cathedral feel, and this multi layered vocal treatment is a highlight of Epica.

The last track is the multi movement suite epic played with virtuoso instrumentation. Simons is in full voice and lifts the ambience. 'The Divine Conspiracy' is a 14 minute classic with many different time sig changes and sections. There are female choral voices in a foreign tongue, then an operatic voice soar over the sound. There is a dreamy ambience which is broken by angular guitar riffing and Jansen's growls that darkens the atmosphere. There are some inspired riffs and the mixture of thrash and classical opera is delightful. The music is tight and creates a wall of sound.

Overall this is a stunning concept album with the mood ranging from heavenly to extremely sinister. It is my first intro to Epica and it was a pleasant surprise. The concept on the album means many things; "the divine conspiracy opens up reality, time is not the entity, life is what it's meant to be". The crunching guitar assault is juxtaposed with full blown orchestra throughout. It is an emotional experience, uplifting and dark at intervals. Take the Epica test now.

|B-| A beautiful combination of symphonic metal and medieval neo-romantic classical music.

The Divine Conspiracy, the most recent of Epica's discography as of this review, really does show blatantly symphonic metal at its best. The female vocalist Simone Simons is well known in the metal community for a good reason, and she has my utmost approval as a classical singer myself. Even though she doesn't sing with a classical style, it is nonetheless quality singing. This is legit composition here, incredibly lush and convincing choral and orchestral parts of the modern medieval neo-romantic style, the sort of thing you'd here playing D&D-based RPGs, as well as world music influence. It's still metal in the vein of Nightwish, but Epica's music is far more developed and artistic than their Finnish counterpart, with much more instrumental variation and mixture of genres. The lyrics are great, often addressing philosophical and political concepts without being overly pretentious or biased. The band has a very mature sound already, and it will be interesting to hear their follow-up works in the next few years.

The opener of the album introduces the medieval neo-romantic style with orchestra and chorus (singing in Latin!). Tracks 2-5 are the most accessible and "metal" of the album, which is common with a lot of prog; first few tracks hook the listener in to the band, then the album gets more artistic and creative, expanding the ears of the listener, and this album is a perfect example of this. La'petach Chatat Rovetz: The Final Embrace presents a middle-eastern world music composition, very delightful and fits into the flow of the album beautifully. The series of the Final Embrace are the best and most "prog" sounding tracks on the album, Living a Lie starts of with classical melismatic chant in asymmetric meter - what more could I ask for as a huge fan of Gregorian Chant and prog? What's more there is a Catholic prayer in Latin, enunciated correctly (for once) which blows my mind as an orthodox Catholic. This is probably the best track on the album in general. Fools of Damnation starts of with middle-eastern singing style most associated with Islam, which then leads into the best chorus of the album talking about totalitarianism and an instrumental section with asymmetric meter, organ, classical singing, back into the chorus. Absolutely solid. The album continues with more decent tracks; Safegaurd to Paradise is a neo-romantic ballad that really shows off Simon's vocal abilities and the band's softer and more intimate side. The album comes to a great close with the 13 minute opus album title track.

The only main problem I have with this problem is how long it is. While there is a lot of good variation of sound in each track, the tracks all start to sound very similar after an hour, mainly as a result of the symphonic metal influence; the heavy guitar riffs sound very the same for many of the songs. Each track is fantastic on its own, and the album flows very well, but you can have too much of a good thing for too long, which is definitely the case with this album.

If you like symphonic metal, especially on the more progressive side, this album is essential for you. Overall I strongly recommend this to progressive metal listeners, especially those who like the kind of modern classical music that you here in medieval-based RPGs. The two genres combine beautifully, which Epica demonstrate with this solid album.

Ambitious, powerful, epic goth/symphonic metal

I'll never be a metal expert because I don't listen to enough of it, but I make a point to hear different genres when I can. All I knew about Epica was the frequent comparisons to Nightwish and other female-fronted metal bands, the so called "beauty and beast" thing which I'm sure drives them all crazy, but to me Epica is on the finer side of these groups. Guitarist Ad Sluijter describes the band's sound as "a bridge between power metal and gothic metal" and this sounds like a fair description.

"The Divine Conspiracy" is a highly entertaining drama of contrasts. Most obvious is the vocal contrast between the amazing pipes of Simone Simons who sings with both power and formal operatic prowess, and the deathly growls of Mark Jansen. Next would be the shift from the brutal guitar/bass/drums blasting to the quiet and contemplative moments of acoustic guitar and mellow singing, like the gorgeous opening to "Chasing the Dragon." The long and often intricate storybook compositions are fleshed out beautifully by strings and vocal choirs, not unlike what you would hear on certain Therion albums. The metal component is very tight and as mentioned, just brutal at times, at least to a relative metal toe-dipper like myself. "The Divine Conspiracy" is such a long and elaborate work I cannot do a play by play, but the work is big, bold, dramatic, fiery, and occasionally peaceful. The title track closes the album, a sprawling 14 minute beast that begins with grand orchestration and Latin vocals before plunging into the fire, and finally closing with a reprise of the orchestra. Overall I have to be in the mood for such a work, it can be exhausting if you're not prepared for the 75 minute assault. Broken into three lengthy and intricate "acts", the CD's booklet provides complete lyrics and nice artwork to help you navigate. This is a strong 3 ½ stars for me but just shy of my 4 star criteria. I've heard their next album is even better than this so I'm looking forward to the Epica masterpiece.

Another female fronted theatric metal band whose albums explore some seriously demanding compositional and performance territory, like NIGHTWISH. Both groups put out amazing productions in 2007. NIGHTWISH, to my ears, sound a bit more polished instrumentally and symphonically, but the vocal arrangements of The Divine Conspiracy may top Dark Passion Play. (The use of male voices--even growls--seem to fit, work well, within the context of the music and as a contrast to the amazing female vocals of "mezzo soprano" SIMONE SIMONS.) I do not like the keyboards used by Epica (despite the often wondeful 'orchestra' sound accomplished), and the in-your-face machine gun fire kick drum is a detractor, but everything else is wonderful.

Album highlights: the more sensitive, sedate, "Chasing the Dragon" (7:40) (9/10); the Arabian-tinged "Fools of Damnation: The Embrace that Smothers, Part IX" (8:42) (8/10), and: the epic title song, (13:57) (8/10).