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Rating: Having left After Forever for artistic reasons (Mark Jansen wanted more neoclassical sounds, while the other members were more oriented towards metal), Mark Jansen can give life to all his musical aspirations with the group he founded: Epica, who will release their debut album "The Phantom Agony" in 2003. With the release of After Forever's third full-length, "Invisible Circles," the differences between the two groups become quite clear: While After Forever presents a sublime album with very few choirs, orchestrations in the background, heavy guitars, and numerous prog accents, "The Phantom Agony" is an album focused on orchestrations and magnificent choirs, always with a dark mood, even though the group doesn't shy away from purely metal moments.
The tracks are sung by the talented and beautiful mezzo-soprano Simone Simmons, also the lyricist and Mark's girlfriend. The CD opens with "Adyta", a very symphonic and dark introduction where the choirs dominate, "Sensorium" starts with the union of keyboards and guitars. It is a melancholic mid-tempo. In the interlude, the orchestrations and choirs will accompany Simone. "Cry For The Moon" is one of the most beautiful tracks of the lot. We find a duet between Simone's clean voice and Mark's growl and fairly metallic phrases (always with orchestrations in the foreground). "Feint" is a decent ballad entirely based on Simone's interpretation. "Illusive Consensus" is another excellent piece that, due to the use of orchestrations and guitars, reminds me of Nightwish's music (especially that of "Century Child"). "Run For A Fall" is perhaps the most intense piece: it begins as a ballad and then explodes thanks also to the orchestrations, the growl, and almost prog metal phrases, "Facade of Reality" is centered on the alternation between growl and clean vocals. "Self Al Din" is one of the best moments: a very metal and very dramatic piece with moving orchestrations. "The Phantom Agony" is the mini-suite that closes the CD. Excellent finale.
Overall, a more than good CD, far from the glories of After Forever (always according to my subjective opinion), but still of excellent quality.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Sensorium (04:48)
Chance doesn't exist
But the path of life is not totally so predestined
And time and chronology show us how all should be
In the ways of existence
To find out why we are here
Being consciousness is a torment
The more we learn is the less we get
Every answer contains a new quest
A quest to non existence, a journey with no end
No one surveys the whole, focus on things so small
But life's objective is to make it meaningful
Only searching for this
That which doesn't exist
Although our ability to relativize remains unclear
I'm not afraid to die
I'm afraid to be alive without being aware of it
I'm so afraid to, I couldn't stand to
Waste all my energy on things
That do not matter anymore
Our future has already been written by us alone
But we don't grasp the meaning
Of our programmed course of life
Our future has already been wasted by us alone
And we just let it happen and do not worry at all
We only fear what comes
And smell death every day
03 Cry for the Moon (The Embrace That Smothers, Part IV) (06:44)
Follow your common sense
You cannot hide yourself
behind a fairytale forever and ever
Only by revealing the whole truth can we disclose
The soul of this sick bulwark forever and ever
Forever and ever
Indoctrinated minds so very often
Contain sick thoughts
And commit most of the evil they preach against
Don't try to convince me with messages from God
You accuse us of sins committed by yourselves
It's easy to condemn without looking in the mirror
Behind the scenes opens reality
Eternal silence cries out for justice
Forgiveness is not for sale
Nor is the will to forget
Virginity has been stolen at very young ages
And the extinguisher loses its immunity
Morbid abuse of power in the garden of eden
Where the apple gets a youthful face
You can't go on hiding yourself
Behind old fashioned fairytales
And keep washing your hands in innocence
04 Feint (04:19)
The very brightest candle of all has been extinguished
Smothered by those who could not bear to face reality
Every beat of your heart tore the lies all apart
Made foundations quiver
Every wave in the lake caused the porcelain to break
And I shiver....
The leftover tallow just doesn't contain
All the right answers
Under a sea of dust lies a vast wealth of wisdom
As untouched snow turns red
Innocence dies
This black page in history is not colourfast,
Will stain the next
All what remains is just a feint of what was meant to be
This black page in history is not colourfast,
Will stain the next
And nothing seems in life,
In dreams like what was meant to be
05 Illusive Consensus (05:00)
So sweet caress, never long to last!
You entered my soul and gave hope to my life.
So sweet caress, never hope to last!
You left me behind all alone and aghast
Capured inside such an austere Elysium
Imperfect feelings, futile greef
Love a device against all solitude
As it all went on, the love became
A field in a dream that once had been real
So sweet caress, never long to last!
Destroy this illusion we need a change of fate!
Your frantic thoughts are only a condemned cry
Primo somniare videbamur
deinde veritas se praecipitavit
I secretly longed for something
which had never existed
First I thought it was a dream
but then it smashed into reality
Beautiful on the outside, decayed deeply within
I secretly longed for something
which had never existed
Devoted to a body without a soul
Numquam non tibi diffidam
07 Run for a Fall (06:32)
Run For A Fall
Do not use the past as an alibi
For all of your deficiencies always standing by
Face your negligence, do not fool yourself
Shortcomings will soon appear
For weakness shows itself
Blind from your success and all of the excess
Deaf from the praise you had
Don't cry out of self pity
In forcing your way through
For I will not be vulnerable
To slander made by you
In a misty veil, misplaced
Where castles in the air will be no longer seen
As something out of reach
In time the dream will be erased
So many things will never be
The way they seemed
And pride will have it's fall at last
Her eyes fell
While the shame was written on her face
When she realised that her failures
Could never be undone again
You did not notice the manipulated hand
That overshadowed your thoughts all those years
That made you insecure
You did not notice the ancient shifting sand
That pulls you down into an everlasting sham
You will never be able to fight
Never be able to hide
Run for a fall, you'd better run
09 The Phantom Agony (08:59)
[I. Impasse of Thoughts]
I can't see you, I can't hear you
Do you still exist?
I can't feel you, I can't touch you,
Do you exist?
The Phantom Agony
I can't taste you, I can't think of you,
Do we exist at all?
[II. Between hope and despair]
The future doesn't pass
And the past won't overtake the present
All that remains is an obsolete illusion
We are afraid of all the things that could not be
A phantom agony
Do we dream at night
Or do we share the same old fantasy?
I am a silhouette of the persen wandering in my dreams
Tears of unprecedented beauty
Reveal the truth of existence
We're all sadists
The age-old development of consciousness
Drives us away from the essence of life
We meditate too much,
so that our instincts will fade away
They fade away
What's the point of life
And what's the meaning if we all die in the end?
Does it make sense to learn or do we forget everything?
Tears of unprecedented beauty
Reveal the truth of existence
We're all pessimists
Teach me how to see and free the disbelief in me
What we get is what we see, the Phantom Agony
[III. Nevermore]
The lucidity of my mind has been revealde in new dreams
I am able to travel where my heart goes
In search of self-realisation
This is the way to escape from our agitation
And develop ourselves
Use your illusion and enter my dream...
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