Nuke
This is probably the most solidly constructed album of Epica's first 3. Unlike their first album, the level of cheesy cliches has been greatly reduced, and unlike their 3rd album, this album is somewhat restrained. In other words, fans of gothic metal might prefer this one, fans of prog metal might prefer their next one, and idiots might prefer the first one ;). This album is very memorable, with catchy songs that will stick in your head forever. You can certainly pick up on lots of creativity here as well, and not the gimmicky creativity of the first album, but genuinely creative moments where you wonder how they thought of that. The execution of the ideas is much better too. This can be observed in the instrumental introduction at the beginning. It is a very soundtrack-inspired song, almost a sort of pirates of the carribeanesque vibe, but listen to how well orchestrated it is. The parts work together fantastically well, with layers of instruments complementing each other and standing on their own, it sounds like true classical music, not some goth metal band's compositions. The second song is a gothic metal song, and is equally fantastic. The vocal melody is really powerful, something that could not work in classical music, but on a metal song sounds perfectly emotive and chilling.
The individual performances are mixed. Simone sounds stronger on this album than the last one, but not as strong as on the next one. The drumming is better, but also not as good as the next album. Mark Jansen is a pretty good guitarist, and is probably the most skilled member of the band, of course he has more experience having originally been from After Forever. Speaking of After Forever, this album shares similarities to their album Decipher, and it seems Mark is still trying to match that album, sort of seeking to fufill his vision that he couldn't quite reach with After Forever before he was sacked. The example of the vocals in the first song not fitting classical but sounding good in metal is something that came right out of Decipher. It seems like he is reaching for a sound that he just can't quite grasp, trying to fufill some gothic vision. That doesn't detract from this album in any way. This album is truly beautiful at moments, and although it doesn't maintain a consistently great sound throughout, there aren't any bad parts, just good parts and less good points. The best songs are the first 2 and the title track, which is an epic 10 minuter, with beautiful orchestration and pretty good metal too.