THE PHANTOM AGONY

This gets 4 stars. I think it deserves more than that, but the only thing after that is 5, and to be 5, at least in my rating system, it needs to be an absolute landmark of the progressive rock genre... something like Dark Side of the Moon.

I will begin by saying that this album is amazing! I first came across Epica on Vampirefreaks, when I was just browsing through metal music, and found Epica. I liked the name and clicked on them by chance, and heard cry for the moon. I was just amazed by the male and female vocals dueling each other, the symphonic majesty, and its progressive, technical structure... going from quiet and ballad like to a really fast death metal type of style. It was very Epic.

I gave the album a listen, and found that it is consistent with this throughout. Epica is very good at fusing two completely different genres together, and alot of times one genre is used to give the other a slightly better edge. For example, a lot of the distorted guitars of metal are used to give rhythm to their classical sounding parts, and vice versa. The progressiveness of this record comes from the technicality... just the nature and way that they encorporate rock and classical music together, all the songs interesting song structures, extended lengths, epic compositions etc. My favourite songs from this album are Cry for the Moon, Facade of Reality, and the Phantom Agony.

This is definitely worth checking out, and out of the symphonic progressive metal genre, it is definitely an outstanding release.