EXORDIUM

Certainly not the place to start your After Forever experience, Exordium feels like a band releasing product that could have waited for their next album. The Dutch metal band is oft-described as "goth-metal" but this release is pretty much a pop-metal teaser without much authentic darkness or interesting composition. Floor Jansen is a decent soprano but After Forever does not deliver anything close to the better releases of a Nightwish or Epica, either in vocals quality or composition. One track here, "Glorifying Means," does manage to get off the ground with some wicked riffs and the tradeoff male death vocals with Jansen's pipes, dealing with the topic of drug addiction. But beyond that you have some subpar originals and two pretty lame covers. The DVD portion of this ridiculous waste of natural resources gives you the "My Choice" video along with the making of said video, of earth-shattering importance to the world apparently. For the scant amount of quality original music here the band issues two discs, a tri-fold digipak sleeve, and a 14-page booklet-the most egregious packaging decision since Loreena McKennitt issued a complete 2nd compact disc in her "Ancient Muse" release for *one bonus track*. Exordium is a completely unnecessary product purge-only for the most fervent After Forever fans is this recommended, and even then, barely.

"Exordium" was released in 2003, one year after the excellent "Decipher" and a year before the disputed "Invisible Circles". It represents the transformation experienced by the band's sound more symphonic albums in the "Prison of Desire" and "Decipher", a reality for more heavy since then.

"Line of Thoughts" is an instrumental track that serves as an introduction to "Beneath."

By introducing already see a difference, if before the album began with corals, pompous arrangements, as in "Mea Culpa" and "Ex Cathedra", now break with "Mark Jansen" was final. Corals and pompous arrangements were taken by him to the band "Epica".

"Beneath" is more direct, without many gadgets. In some ways it was a preview of what would be the band's subsequent album...

"My Choice" has one of the best lyrics of the band. "Is it not the choosing That makes the life we live so intricate?" At issue is a ballad sound.

"Glorifying Means" rescues that dueling vocals between "Floor Jansen" and "Sander Gommans" without "Mark Jansen" since left the band. His absence is needed for this "EP", the orchestral arrangements could have given a more elegant to "Exordium," beyond their screaming vocals.

A version of "The Evil That Men Do - Iron Maiden," the voice "Floor Jansen" was very good. The liveliness imposed by it in the interpretation made ​​this song became one of the highlights of "Ep". The instrumental music performed well.

"One Day I'll Fly Away - Randy Crawford," another remake, terminating the "Ep." The end result is higher than expected.

The "EP" created a good expectation of what would come from the band, the result would be "Invisible Circles" that while not being either, it was sign of musical maturity. "Exordium" is recommended even for those not a fan of the band, worth checking out this new phase of the band and their remakes.