PRISON OF DESIRE

After Forever is a typical exponent of the female-fronted gothic metal band. They are not as pompous as Within Temptation or Nightwish and not as commercial as Lacuna Coil. Basically Prison of Desire is a watered down copy-cat of the Gathering's Mandylion style.

Floor Jansen is an excellent vocalist. Her singing voive is reminiscent of Anneke Van Giersbergen but she's equally adept at operatic flourishes. My frustration with this album comes from the fact that it hints at what they could have accomplished if the band had just collectively sacked themselves and Floor had found some more inspired and talented musicians to strengthen her potential.

Unfortunately that is not the case. Worst of all, they deemed it necessary to destroy most songs with boring instrumental filler and the most uninspired and inexpressive male grunts you can find in the business. They are exactly what I sound like when I'm having a cold and I'm sure you wouldn't want to pay money to hear that.

Don't pick this up unless you're a die-hard fan of this style and have already devoured every album from The Gathering and the good stuff from Therion and Stream Of Passion or the more adventurous style of Madder Mortem.

I like this album. Simple? More or less. The sound from keyboard sometimes is very loud but it's not a problem. Mark Jansen, Floor Jansen and Sander Gommans with their vocalizations are amazing. At time the called gothic metal was in vogue and because of that band's sound was considered as another, but here it was possible to see the greatness of the band, with songs like "Leaden Legacy - The Embrace That Smothers - Part 1", "Follow In The Cry - The Embrace That Smothers - Part 2" and "Yield to Temptation (The Embrace That Smothers - Part III)". Latin verses beautifully constructed: "Mea Culpa (The Embrace That Smothers - Prologue)" What to say about "Silence From Afar" ? beautiful and sad at the same time. "Inimical Chimera" is strong, heavy and vibrate. Very good riffs improved further in the next album...amazing, as I said before, I like this album. "Ephemeral" is ethereal and short...a poem... "Beyond Me" brings "Sharon Den Adel" (Within Temptation) in a duet with "Floor Jansen". Perfect? Not, but excellent.

In the first place, my interest in this band came as a sort of "spin-off" of listening to Nightwish, after hearing their last album: "Endless forms most beautiful". They introduced a new vocalist here: Floor Jansen (at least on studio albums, she had already collaborated with them on a live album and almost a whole tour!!!), and the result was very good. So I started to investigate about her, and found that she had been at least in two bands before: ReVamp and this one, After Forever. So I started to listen to After Forever discography (it's all on Spotify, if you want to hear it) a year or so, and now I'm relistening them, with a careful atention. First said, this review is about the version that appears in this page, the original tracklist, and not the "Extended Sessions", which, IMHO is full of unnecesary fillings that add nothing to the whole (if that would be the case, I would give it no more than three stars). This is not prog metal in the classic sense (they would do something near to it years later, on their homonimous disc), but it's more precisely defined as an stilized, and sometimes complex, goth metal (so, if you don't like goth at all, you may disagree with my rating). In a whole, the album is great, and it has a beautiful atmosphere that was lost on subsequent albums. The vocals of Floor are very beautiful, with a range even more impressive that the one she use with Nightwish. The growls of Mark, even if not perfect, add a strong and gladly received contrast, and set the textures of the melodies (in fact, in the few songs he doesn't sing, it seems like something is missing), something he will absolutely fail to do on the next album (Decipher). The only reason I have been doubtful about 4 or 5 stars, is because I really don't get why "The embrace that smothers" should be seen as a single theme. In fact, apart from "Mea Culpa" and "Leaden Legacy" (the former serving as an intro to the latter), I don't seem to find something that really binds them. I tried making a playlist, and playing them together, one after the other, but it just doesn't work at all. But, if you play the whole album, and forget this, it seems to me just perfect. So I would go for the 5 stars.

Less progressive than their later efforts, it is a good record nevertheless for an open metal fan.

There are diverse influence manifested in the music such as classical music (without any orchestra so inferior to Therion), gothic/doom slight spirit and some progressive moments. Vocals are excellent, be it the bellsounding female vocal or mighty growling that adds more edge. Of notice are advanced female harmonies that give a lot of warmth through the metal tunnel. Instrumentation is competent even if not very ambitious but not flat or shallow on the other side. I can recommend this album due to good melodies and execution but for less open proggers, start with their 2004 album or later.