Like Prog Metal? Check out this band...

"Crusader" metal... interesting! I've heard a few other bands playing with this sort of sound, and I quite like the ideas.

It's a pity about the obsessive need to employ death metal vocals at inappropriate places... and I stand by everything I've ever said about prog metal and form. This tends to suffer from the same impression that if you go off at a sudden tangent, you can hide the fact that you lack the imagination to develop what has gone before.

The quasi-operatic vocals are nice - but tend to confuse things a little. Are the band going flat out for a sound that evokes the era of Knights Templar, or are they going for a vaguely Wagnerian approach to it? The latter seems more likely, and is somewhat lazy, IMO.

Although my comments lean hard on the negative, I do think that there are some great symphonic sounds and ideas there - but the overall standard of musicianship lets it down for me. It's one thing to have and realise great ideas, but quite another to combine those ideas into works of art.

But don't let that stop any prog metal fan from checking it out (as if anything I said would... ) - I think you were right to draw attention to this band, as there is certainly some potential there.

I'm interested to see what the prog metal fans will make of it...

I found some samples here: http://www.epica.nl/index.php?id=13&section=downloads

 

Epica is not really progressive metal...more along the lines of symphonic goth metal.  Epica reminds me of bands After Forever, Penumbra, Within Temptation and Nightwish...

Epica are influenced by Kamelot, who are power metal with a few progressive elements, so something got into epica.  At certain point I've really liked this band and listened to 'The Phantom Agony' many many times, now I don't listen to it, but i remember many of the beatufil moments in their music.

 

Their new album, which I've heard only once, is less interesting IMO, it is more bombastic but I didn't find any of the songs really interesting.

vogre wrote: Epica are influenced by Kamelot, who are power metal with a few progressive elements, so something got into epica.  At certain point I've really liked this band and listened to 'The Phantom Agony' many many times, now I don't listen to it, but i remember many of the beatufil moments in their music.

Simone Simons does a song with Kamelot on "The Black Halo" (Kamelot's new release). They have a video of it (The Haunting) on Kamelots website... I think it's pretty well done. Also, Epica has toured with Kamelot... that might be a good show!

Certif1ed wrote: It's a pity about the obsessive need to employ death metal vocals at inappropriate places... and I stand by everything I've ever said about prog metal and form. This tends to suffer from the same impression that if you go off at a sudden tangent, you can hide the fact that you lack the imagination to develop what has gone before.

FWIW, I completely agree with the essence of what you're saying here. For example, Opeth would be so much more enjoyable to me without the growling. As it is, the best thing I can say about it is that it makes me enjoy Mikael's vocals that much more when they do arrive.

I understand that many bands use the operatic and growling vocals to illustrate the god/devil dichotomy... but I personally feel it's heavy-handed and overused... so overused that it frequently crosses into the realm of comedy, IMO.

 

Certif1ed:

"I stand by everything I've ever said about prog metal and form."

"contextually inappropriate..."

In my view, these statements are very confining!  It really doesn't leave much room for the music to spread beyond what it already is...forget about form and inappropriate use of growling vocals in prog music...it's all good for adding more variety/diversity/originality to the music.

Vanwarp wrote:   Certif1ed: "I stand by everything I've ever said about prog metal and form." "contextually inappropriate..." In my view, these statements are very confining!  It really doesn't leave much room for the music to spread beyond what it already is...forget about form and inappropriate use of growling vocals in prog music...it's all good for adding more variety/diversity/originality to the music.

It is, but it needs to be contextually appropriate.

Just because you don't understand what I'm getting at, there's no need to dismiss it, young grasshopper

Vanwarp wrote: Certif1ed wrote: It is, but it needs to be contextually appropriate. Just because you don't understand what I'm getting at, there's no need to dismiss it, young grasshopper Oh, I understand the confining nature of your musical tastes, and there's nothing wrong with having musical preferences, but to state that the use of death vocals "needs to be contextually appropriate" is in my view, very narrow-minded of you.  I'm afraid you're the one who doesn't get it...

IMO the use of death vocals in a beauty and the beast way is not appropriate in 90% of all such music that I've heard. That includes ALL of Epica and ALL of After Forever.

IMO it's much more appropriate to use many styles of vocals, including growling, but only in appropriate situations. The problem with Epica is that the man always growls, and the woman always sings in an operatic way. Nightwish have the same problem (with the operatic singing).

IMO the perfect example of adequate and at the same time very diverse vocals is Ayreon's Into The Electric Castle. It also features death growls ... for the character "Death", which seems fitting.

Trouserpress recently posted a good definition of what is prog for him. It boils down to prog artists should not be limited to their genre when choosing the elements of their music. Epica don't seem to be free in that regard, because the use of growling seems to be a must for them. They are confining themselves to the beauty and the beast pattern.

Edited by MikeEnRegalia

Certif1ed wrote: Trouserpress recently posted a good definition of what is prog for him. It boils down to prog artists should not be limited to their genre when choosing the elements of their music. Epica don't seem to be free in that regard, because the use of growling seems to be a must for them. They are confining themselves to the beauty and the beast pattern.

If you agree with Trouserpress definition of prog, then I really don't understand what the problem is since he says exactly what I've been saying.  Prog artist should not be limited (not confined) to their genre when choosing the elements (death growls/opera singers/whatever vocal style you want...) of their music.

Simply said, they chose beauty and the beast vocal styles to convey their "gothic style" music to the masses, instead of just using one voice, one single form of vocal pattern.  For this genre and style of music many find the use of "beauty and the beast" vocal stylings to be appropriate, in this context.  It's not a pattern at all, it's a little bit like you said, conforming to form within the genre and style of music they are playing...