I’m resolved to like this band. I really want to but at times the songs are just so boring. It’s like the same guitar & drum work every song and only actually distinguished by the orchestra. It’d be one thing if they actually toured with an orchestra (ala Haggard) but they don’t so the heavy dependence on that and the choir really make me dislike the albums. I was astonished to hear a guitar solo on the new album. Right now I’m listening to The Embrace that Smothers. I’m currently listening to the last of the After Forever songs for this collection. I noticed that the Epica albums had multi song parts to them but I didn’t realize that this one started with After Forever until just now as I was trying to figure out why Epica’s first album started at Part IV. It’s been awhile since I listened to After Forever’s Prison of Desire as I find Decipher to be the far superior album of their old style. I think I had Estranged played on my ibook several hundred times with The Key not far behind. I love their new style as well but I think that album will always remain my favourite. Anyway, back to Epica. My main issue is that guitar work. It’s just too much of the same and I’ve said several times before that if you removed the orchestra from their music, you would feel like you’re listening to the same song each time.

The funny thing is I never had this problem with After Forever while Mark was with them so I don’t know what happened in the transition from AF to Epica. The only thing that I can think is that in AF, he was one of many songwriters, while in Epica he is the main songwriter.

I don’t hate Epica. I just have trouble getting into them and with so many other bands of a similar nature for me to focus on, they usually get left behind. I want to like them because their best work is amazing. I just generally ski most of the songs on their albums to get to the best work. Which is why I started listening to The Embrace That Smothers to its entirety. The 9 existing songs and 3 interludes would have made their own spectacular album.

Sirenia is another band I always have this trouble with where it seems Morten has only one formula to his songs and while there’s a few good songs here and there, the albums are overall extremely boring. Of course, I’m not the fondest of early Tristania. I think they really started to shine with World of Glass, after he left. His habit of having a new singer every album/EP also makes me think he doesn’t like having someone else be the star of his band. Oddly enough, he ended up changing the formula in the new album but instead of there being variation, it seems like he just developed a new one for all the songs so they still all sound the same.

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