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The Phantom Agony
''The Phantom Agony'' is the first full-length studio album by Dutch symphonic metal band Epica. It was released in 2003 by the Dutch label Transmission Records. It is the first album recorded by guitarist Mark Jansen after his departure from the band After Forever. On this album, Jansen continues with the collection of songs that make up ''The Embrace That Smothers''. The first three parts can be found on ''Prison of Desire'' (2000), After Forever's debut album, and the following three parts can be found on ''The Divine Conspiracy'' (2007), Epica's third album. These songs deal with the dangers of organized religion. The album was re-released on 23 March 2013, which coincided with Epica's 10th anniversary Retrospect show, as a 2-disc expanded edition by Epica's former record label Transmission Records. Track listing Personnel All credits adapted from the original release. Epica * Simone Simons – lead vocals * Mark Jansen – rhythm guitar, grunts, screams * Ad Slu ...
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Epica (band)
Epica is a Dutch symphonic metal band, founded by guitarist and vocalist Mark Jansen after his departure from After Forever. Formed as a symphonic metal band with gothic tendencies, later Epica have incorporated into their sound strong death metal influences. Starting from the third album, progressive metal influences have also become evident. In addition, the band often uses thrash metal and groove metal riffs, black metal passages (mostly in the drum technique), power metal moments and references to Arabic music. Some songs also have electronic shades, djent transitions and folk metal melodies derived from Middle Eastern, Chinese and Celtic traditions. Epica is also known for the attention to the vocal lines that, in contrast to the heavy context, weave very catchy, easy to hold, sophisticated and emotional melodies. The use of mezzo-soprano vocals and growled vocals, performed by Simone Simons and Mark Jansen respectively, is fundamental to the band's sound. They primarily wr ...
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The Divine Conspiracy
''The Divine Conspiracy'' is the third full-length studio album by Dutch symphonic metal band Epica as well as their first concept album. It was released through Nuclear Blast in Japan on 22 August 2007, in the US on 28 August, in Europe on 7 September, and in the UK on 10 September. The concept that guides the songs is that God created many different religions for humanity to figure out and overcome them so as to discover that, in nature and essence, they were all in fact the same one (hence the name, "The Divine Conspiracy"). Aside from the concept of such a conspiracy, ''The Divine Conspiracy'' finalizes ''The Embrace That Smothers'', which began in After Forever's ''Prison of Desire'' (Prologue and parts I-III) and continued in Epica's ''The Phantom Agony'' (parts IV-VI). In short, ''The Embrace That Smothers'' is a collection of 10 songs (Prologue and parts I-IX), which talks about the dangers of organized religion. Background In ''The Divine Conspiracy'', Mark Jansen gives ...
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Epica (band) Albums
Epica or EPICA may refer to: * Epica (band), a Dutch symphonic metal band * ''Epica'' (Kamelot album), 2003 * ''Epica'' (Audiomachine album), 2012 * The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) * The Epica Awards (International Advertising Awards) * Daewoo Tosca, also known as Chevrolet Epica or Holden Epica * Daewoo Magnus, also known as Chevrolet Epica * ''Banksia epica'', a South Australian native bush See also *Epic (other) Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements Epic or EPIC may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and med ...
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Amanda Somerville
Amanda Somerville (born March 7, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach who resides in Wolfsburg, Germany. She is known primarily for her work with many European symphonic metal bands. Biography Personal life Somerville was raised in Flushing, Michigan. She attended Flushing Senior High School, original graduating class of 1997, however graduating a full year early in 1996 and winning a scholarship for graduating with high honors to the University of Michigan–Flint, where she majored in psychology. Somerville moved to Wolfsburg, Germany in 1999, where she resided for several years, working mainly in Germany and the Netherlands. On August 19, 2013, she announced that she was engaged to be married to After Forever's former guitarist Sander Gommans, and the pair were married on July 26, 2014. On January 8, 2015, she announced that she and Gommans were expecting their first child. On July 17, 2015, their daughter, Lana Elise Gommans, was born. In 2018, their ...
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Robert Hunecke-Rizzo
Robert Hunecke-Rizzo (17 June 1971 in Wolfsburg) is a German bassist, guitarist and drummer, known for his work with Heavens Gate, Luca Turilli, and Kamelot. He was one of the founding members of the supergroup Aina, which released the metal opera ''Days of Rising Doom'' in 2003. He was the music composer and played most of the instruments on the album. He was also a touring member as bass player of the metal opera project Avantasia, and his performance was thereby recorded on the band's live DVD ''The Flying Opera ''The Flying Opera'' is a boxed set containing two DVDs and two CDs by the German power metal band Avantasia, released in March 2011. Avantasia evolved from being a side-project of Edguy vocalist Tobias Sammet to a full-fledged band touring all o ...'' released in 2011. He was part of the Avantasia world tours in 2008 and 2010. References Living people Luca Turilli (band) members Luca Turilli's Dreamquest members German heavy metal bass guitarists Year of b ...
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Ad Sluijter
Epica is a Dutch symphonic metal band, founded by guitarist and vocalist Mark Jansen after his departure from After Forever. Formed as a symphonic metal band with gothic tendencies, later Epica have incorporated into their sound strong death metal influences. Starting from the third album, progressive metal influences have also become evident. In addition, the band often uses thrash metal and groove metal riffs, black metal passages (mostly in the drum technique), power metal moments and references to Arabic music. Some songs also have electronic shades, djent transitions and folk metal melodies derived from Middle Eastern, Chinese and Celtic traditions. Epica is also known for the attention to the vocal lines that, in contrast to the heavy context, weave very catchy, easy to hold, sophisticated and emotional melodies. The use of mezzo-soprano vocals and growled vocals, performed by Simone Simons and Mark Jansen respectively, is fundamental to the band's sound. They primarily ...
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Simone Simons
Simone Johanna Maria Simons (born 17 January 1985) is a Dutch singer. She is best known for being the lead singer of Dutch symphonic metal band Epica, which she joined at the age of seventeen, releasing eight studio albums and touring the world. In her singing career, she has also collaborated with bands such as Kamelot, Leaves' Eyes, Primal Fear, Ayreon, and Angra. She also has a side pursuit as a lifestyle blogger, via her website SmoonStyle. Early life Simons was born in Hoensbroek, Netherlands. She has a younger sister named Janneke who was born on Simone's second birthday. Simons cited her musical influences as Lacuna Coil, Nightwish, Tristania, Kamelot, Within Temptation, Dimmu Borgir, Tiamat, and some classical music such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Simons started playing flute for two years after joining music school at the age of 12. At 14, she had one year of pop singing lessons, and at 15, she switched to classical singing after listening to Nightwish's ''Oceanb ...
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Discogs
Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the largest online database of electronic music, the site now includes releases in all genres on all formats. After the database was opened to contributions from the public, rock music began to become the most prevalent genre listed. , Discogs contains over 15.7 million releases, by over 8.3 million artists, across over 1.9 million labels, contributed from over 644,000 contributor user accounts – with these figures constantly growing as users continually add previously unlisted releases to the site over time. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc. and located in Portland, Oregon, United States. History The discogs.com domain name was registered in August 2000, and Discogs itself ...
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Retrospect (Epica Album)
''Retrospect'' is the third live album by Dutch symphonic metal band Epica in celebration of their tenth anniversary. The recorded live show took part in Eindhoven, Netherlands on 23 March 2013 at the Klokgebouw, and was sold out. Because of the great demand by international fans, Epica announced a live stream, called the Retrostream, on 4 March 2013. Epica performed on stage with the same orchestra that accompanied Epica in the recording of the live album ''The Classical Conspiracy'': the 70-piece Extended Hungarian Remenyi Ede Chamber Orchestra and the Choir of Miskolc National Theatre. The expanded ensemble mostly played Epica songs, including a whole new song called Retrospect, especially written for this live show with the same name. Like on ''The Classical Conspiracy'', Epica played some classical music, excerpts from operas and movie soundtracks, however not as many as on the aforementioned show. The album was released on CD, DVD and Blu-ray on 8 November 2013, through N ...
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Encyclopaedia Metallum
Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives (commonly known as Metal Archives per the URL or abbreviated as MA) is an online encyclopedia based upon musical artists who predominantly perform heavy metal music along with its various sub-genres. Encyclopaedia Metallum was described by Matt Sullivan of ''Nashville Scene'' as "the Internet's central database for all that is ' tr00' in the metal world." ''Terrorizer'' described the site as "a exhaustive list of pretty much every metal band ever, with full discographies, an active forum and an interlinking members list that shows the ever-incestuous beauty of the metal scene". Nevertheless, there are exceptions for bands which fall under disputed genres not accepted by the website. Encyclopaedia Metallum attempts to provide comprehensive information on each band, such as a discography, logos, pictures, lyrics, line-ups, biography, trivia and user-submitted reviews. The site also provides a system for submitting bands to the archives. T ...
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Religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human cultur ...
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Prison Of Desire
''Prison of Desire'' is the debut album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. It was released on 21 April 2000 by Transmission Records. The album contains the first four installments (three parts and a prologue) of ''The Embrace That Smothers'', a collection of songs by Mark Jansen which deals with the influence and distortion of religion in human society. This theme was carried over to the Epica albums ''The Phantom Agony'' and ''The Divine Conspiracy''. The final track, "Beyond Me", features a guest appearance of Sharon den Adel, lead singer in Within Temptation. The album was reissued in June 2008 by the re-financed Transmission Records, as a two-disc set containing previously unreleased studio sessions, instrumental/a cappella tracks, and a handful of demo recordings. Guitarist Sander Gommans has urged fans not to buy this re-release through the band's official forum. In 2021, it was elected by ''Metal Hammer'' as the 6th best symphonic metal album of all time. Tra ...
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