Band : Epica
Album title : Design Your Universe
Label : Nuclear Blast
Distributor : PIAS
Release date : 16/10/2009
Release : CD

Female-fronted Metal related to Pop music? Whoever made that quote up, will be banned to hell with the release of Epica’s newest diamond. It goes without saying that Epica has proved themselves to be one of the leading bands in the female-fronted metal genre with their 2007 album The Divine Conspiracy. But can we actually talk about a ‘genre’ here? In my opinion, the answer is a firm ‘no’. We’re talking about a female-fronted Metal band, bringing their fans the ultimate best of Symphonic Metal with a clearly Classical touch. I guess this makes the picture much better.

If it’s up to Epica, Belgium and the Netherlands could perfectly join forces, for once again they have won a Belgian soul for their camp. After bass player Yves Huts, Mark Jansen (the founder of the band) found a new fish to give the Epica pond some more colour: the talented Belgian guitarist Isaac Delahaye, who’ll probably have to introduce some more Belgian chocolates in the band. It’s very clear that the addition of Isaac to the band has changed the sound of Epica on this new epic record. The guitar riffs and solos are more present than ever before. Since their first album (The Phantom Agony), Epica’s sound has become much more mature, brutal and convincing. After their previous successful record (The Divine Conspiracy) it was with fear that Design Your Universe was presented to the vast and incredibly critical crowd: would this album make them even more successful in the scene (and even outside of it) or would it be a disappointment after all? Fortunately, the band proved that they hadn’t lost track at all! There are no real disappointing songs on the record. For that, let’s go over some of the pure highlights on the new album.

Epica knows how to keep the attention of their fans. It’s already at the very beginning, with the introductory song “Samadhi”, that we get sucked into an unseen world which floats straight into the bombastic “Resign to Surrender”, where Simone and Mark both prove their vocal qualities, Simone being the beauty and Mark the beast. New single “Unleashed” is one of the rare ‘short’ songs of Epica on this album. It’s is very catchy, though heavier than their previous single “Never Enough”. Other highlight of the album is definitely “Kingdom of Heaven”, which is most likely the longest and most diverse song ever made by Epica. Every time you put your ears to this song, you discover something new about the enormous quality of this track. Even though it lasts for minutes, it never gets boring or anything like that. Of course, it’s quite obvious that the title track “Design Your Universe“ will never become as popular as “Consign to Oblivion”, since this last song is just too huge and traditional to outdo.

This is what Epica is all about: the discovery of a new world in their music. And once again, the band has incredibly succeeded in creating this world for us. I’m looking forward to their next album already.
Will they create another fantastic world for us in another masterpiece of an album or will they just take us for a stroll in the present world they’ve created?

95/100

Tim Tronckoe.