So not my favourite review..
Just months after delivering a live orchestra (how original!) Dispensable, "The Classical Conspiracy 'Epica people of the new bins with its fourth offering. Despite capital sympathy never questioned and charm that the Dutchman must (necessarily) much to their statuesque singer, the flamboyant Simone Simons, was a little like that since "The Divine Conspiracy", the group struggling to renew and to transcend a signature that has nevertheless imposed among the best symphonic metal and gothic female vocals (redundant). However, recruitment in 2007 of former drummer for God Dethroned, Ariën Weesenbeek Van, was able to confer a hardness, a more brutal leg failed him.
Then "Design Your Universe" is it more of an album for Epic? Yes and no actually. No, because it starts from the most beautiful of ways with a handful of high-class compositions. After a bombastic intro to symphonic strains, tumbling the furious "Resign To Surrender" which interact with great success the way from beyond the grave by Mark Jensen and the most angelic of the redhead. With its majestic choruses and relentless rhythmic wall, everything is told in just over six minutes combining orchestral depth, power and gothic metal. "Unleashed", during which the young woman, upsetting, releasing all the emotion she is able, and "Martyr Of The Free World", show the same barrel.
Not since the inaugural "The Phantom Agony", the group had reached such a pitch of perfection, such a master of his style. Succeeding in a ballad, "Our Destiny," "Kingdom Of Heaven" is necessary, finally, the top thirteen minutes, as the bravura of the whole. It also reflects the influence of film music that fuels the inspiration of Holland and especially guitarist Mark Jensen. Grandiose, epic and full of arabesques, it allows Epica give the full measure of his talent and this fact as a form of achievement for its authors. So far, therefore, nothing to say, "Design Your Universe" is burdened with no missteps. We said then that the miracle is going to last ...
Alas, the result turns out not to be totally up to the first part which is almost enough in itself. Thus, the songs that follow seem less salient ( "Burn To A Cinder, the cooing" Tides Of Time "...) and along the final part consists of the same name does not much we did not already know . Even joining the duo on "White Waters", the singer Simone Sonata Arctica, Tony Kakko, somewhat disappointed by his sentimentality. Only "Deconstruct" and "Semblance Of Liberty", two songs in heavy terrain and numerous symphonic flat areas, saving the second half of purring if not commonplace.
Too bad the group had not remembered that the ideal length of a disk remains that the two sides of vinyl. It would have been well advised to jettison some tracks. 73 minutes is too long. Of course, his fans certainly contradict that assertion. The fact remains that "Design Your Universe", would, with some scissors well placed, spent an intensity, a sense of completion which, in the state, he misses. Still, it is probably there best album since its trial run, an entity that continues to float high above the fray of metal female voice.
7½/10
Subject: DYU Review - Metal Gothique 
Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:37 am
