Epica – Design Your Universe
Nuclear Blast Records

Rating:

Symphonic metal band Epica is back with their fifth full length release, entitled Design Your Universe, and they still sound phenomenal! The mixture of the epic and heavy music, the beautiful singing of Simone Simons, and the screams/growls of guitarist/vocalist Mark Jansen is excellent! This band really lives out their name, putting the “epic” in Epica. Design Your Universe includes 13 tracks on the Standard Release version of the album and lasts approximately 1 hour and 14 minutes with two songs lasting over 9 minutes (“Kingdom of Heaven” is approx. 13:35 and “Design Your Universe” is approx. 9:29). Within the 13 tracks, it’s definitely hard to find any stand alone tracks since all of them flow well together and support each other while keeping their own identities and being great as individual tracks, but there are certainly some I would recommend for a great listening experience before hearing the whole album. Some of the tracks I recommend include the two aforementioned tracks “Kingdom of Heaven” (Track 6) and “Design Your Universe” (Track 13/Title track), “Unleashed” (Track 3), “Tides of Time” (Track 9), and “White Waters” (Track 12) which features Tony Kakko of Sonata Arctica. Again, each of these tracks are excellent, but they all have their own identities and serve their own purpose in making Design Your Universe such a great album. Overall, I would suggest this album to any Symphonic metal fans, people looking to get into Symphonic metal, and previous Epica fans.

Sirenia – The 13th Floor
Nuclear Blast Records

(5/5)

Just, as it seems, as most other Symphonic metal bands, Sirenia is not unaccustomed to line-up changes (particularly with singers), but they are pushing on and making excellent music exemplified by their newest album The 13th Floor. The new female singer for the band is Spanish singer Ailyn, and she sounds fantastic! Backing her up vocally is band founder/guitarist Morten Veland who adds clean male vocals to the mix as well as his guttural screams and growls. Together, these two make an excellent vocal pair to lead this band with the help of new guitarist Michael S. Krumins and drummer Jonathan A. Perez. On the album, Morten plays bass, but the current live bassist is Kristian Olav Torp. As stated by Morten, “…it’s the strongest Sirenia line-up to date…” Digging more into the album, this is the first Sirenia album I have experienced, but it will certainly not be the last, or even the last Symphonic metal album, as this style has been popping up in my music arsenal more and more. Generally speaking, The 13th Floor is vocally dominated by Ailyn, but Morten does get his chance to shine in the ninth and final track “Sirens of the Seven Seas”. Either way the vocals go, both members are excellent and really compliment each other and the music. Besides “Sirens of the Seven Seas”, other great tracks on this album include “The Mind Maelstrom” (Track 3), “The Seventh Summer” (Track 4), and “Winterborn 77″ (Track 8). There have only been four tracks mentioned, but in all honesty, the entire album is great. The overall feel is one that is entirely epic and before you know it, you’ve listened to the whole album five times. All in all, this is a fantastic album that should be had by any Sirenia fan as well as fans of bands such as Lacuna Coil, Nightwish, Epica, Therion, and more.

Avantasia – Lost In Space (Chapter 1 & 2)
Nuclear Blast Records

(4/5)

If you liked Avantasia’s EPs Lost in Space Chapter 1 and Lost in Space Chapter 2, you will love that they have been combined to create this aptly titled album Lost In Space (Chapter 1 & 2)! Featuring Edguy frontman Tobias Sammet as singer and bassist, Avantasia takes a slightly more Symphonic Metal approach to their music as opposed to the Power metal style of Edguy. Incorporated on this album is the help of many talented musicians and singers involving an all-star cast including producer Sascha Paeth on lead & rhythm guitars, Henjo Richter (Gamma Ray) on lead guitar, Michael Rodenberg (Aina and Kamelot) on keyboards, Eric Singer on drums and singing (KISS), Amanda Somerville singing (Aina), Jørn Lande singing (Masterplan and ARK), Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween), and Bob Catley (Magnum) singing. Together, all of these people recorded an amazing set of songs. Included in the tracks for this album are the regular version, and alternate version, and an extended version of the title track “Lost in Space” (Tracks 1, 11, and 12), “Lay All Your Love on Me” (ABBA cover also covered by Helloween) (Track 2), “Another Angel Down” (Track 3), and “Ride the Sky” (Lucifer’s Friend cover) (Track 6). All of these tracks add their own aspects to this great album and help make Avantasia an excellent Symphonic metal band. Overall, Lost In Space (Chapter 1 & 2) is a great album and a great addition to your Metal arsenal!

Therion – Live Gothic [2CD/DVD]
Nuclear Blast Records

(4/5)

Swedish Symphonic metal band Therion has just gone live…again! This is actually the band’s second live album and is entitled Live Gothic. Although I have not been known in the past to have much Symphonic metal in my arsenal of music, this 2 CD/DVD release is definitely one I’ll be experiencing for quite some time! One great aspect of this release is the fact that a DVD was released along with the 2 live CDs to give you a better overall experience of the entire set. Overall, it’s definitely a great buy for previous Therion fans or for Symphonic metal fans period. Having a history of changing line-ups quite often, Therion is a hard band to name who is actually IN the band, but for this performance, the band consists of Christofer Johnsson (guitars, keyboards, and organs), Kristian Niemann (lead/rhythm guitars and keyboards), Johan Niemann (bass, guitar, and acoustic guitar), and Petter Karlsson (drums, guitar, keyboards, solo/choral vocals, and percussion) as well as the four solo/choral singers Lori Lewis, Katarina Lilja, Snowy Shaw, and Mats Levén. Out of the four singers, I have to say I prefer the guys voices. I had never heard Therion before, but I recognized Mats Levén’s voice from At Vance’s album Chained and Snowy Shaw’s lower singing really caught my attention as well as his physical appearance on the DVD. As far as the entire album goes, I have to say that no one song is more important to me than any of the others because of the fluidity of the performance, but I do really like the songs “Der Mitternachtslöwe” (Track 1) and “Schwarzalbenheim” (Track 2) as my top 2 favorites. All in all, this Live Gothic is a great buy and I recommend it to Symphonic metal fans everywhere!