After Forever - Prison Of Desire

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Artist:	After Forever
Title:	Prison Of Desire
Label:	Transmission Records TM-023
Length(s):	54 minutes
Year(s) of release:	2000
Month of review:	07/2000

Line up

Floor Jansen - soprano
Mark Jansen - guitars, screams
Sander Gommans - guitars, grunts
Jack Driessen - synths
Luuk van Gerven - bass
Joep Beckers - drums
with Sharon Den Adel, Hans Cassa, Caspar de Jonge, Yvonne Rooda and Melissa 't Hart guesting on vocals.

Tracks

1)	Mea Culpa	2.00
2)	Leaden Legacy	5.07
3)	Semblance Of Confusion	4.09
4)	Black Tomb	6.29 MP3 or RealAudio
5)	Follow In The Cry	4.06
6)	Silence From Afar	5.52
7)	Inimical Chimera	5.00
8)	Tortuous Threnody	6.13
9)	Yield To Temptation	5.53
10)	Ehpemeral	3.05
11)	Beyond Me	6.11

Summary

A new band in my book. Read some pretty raving reviews of this one. Aside from that the album features Sharon Den Adel of Within Tempation as guest on Beyond Me. In case you miss references to bands like Within Temptation: I happen not to be familiar with them.

The music

Mea Culpa opens with low singing male choirs, opposite a choir of female soprano's. Laden majestic music, very melodic introduce us to Leaden Legacy in which the style of the band becomes apparent. The first band that this band reminds me of is The Gathering, but less self similar and the vocal parts are a lot more varied. Three types of vocals here: low masculin vocals for the Latin parts, the grunt vocals Sander Gommans, and the clear classically trained soprano of Floor Jansen. In the parts where the grunts and the soprano resound the music attains great heights. The instrumental intermezzo is slightly classical harpsichordish and may remind one of Rhapsody. The next one up is Semblance Of Confusion. The guitar work is not only heavy here, but at times also quite sharp. In these passages the music reminds me of one of my favourite bands, Neurosis (their Souls At Zero is still a classic in my book). Toward the end the pace goes down a bit and we get some acoustics. The final verse is sung emotionally although the final lines are so high, hardly anything can be heard. Black Tomb opens with dark keyboards. The keyboards by the way figure quite strongly on this album, while the guitar is not used as often as one might expect in the solo role. Again, the high, ethereal melody lines are dominated by Floor Jansen. After the gloomy beginning the music becomes a bit more forceful for a short while. The meandering vocal lines are quite distinctive and intricate and have a slightly Arabic touch, and note the mysterious keyboard lines. The fast paced church organ and fast heavy bass give the music urgency, while the fast intermezzo's have strongly classical leanings. Lots of thematic variation, with recurring themes and passages throughout. Arabic leanings also on the up-beat Follow In The City. The rhythm section succeed very well in inserting some urgent passages into the music, but the grunt-sung verses are not that strong. Later on Floor comes into the picture with a catchy vocal melodies and there are even some dirty gravelly death vocals on this one. The end features some synthetic strings making for a good fniale. Silence From Afar has a sad opening with thoughtful bass playing. This is a balladic piece with a very memorable theme and a heart rending chorus. The intermezzo is fast paced with double bass drums and a bombastic Latin chorus after which the emotional finale returns. Inimical Chimera (yes, they love to use difficult words) is the next one, open dizzyingly until the off-beat vocal part starts. The vocal lines are high and meandering. Again plenty of variation, but most of it a classically arranged style. The epic sound of the band is continued on Tortuous Threnody, a track where every little hole of silence is thoroughly plugged with whatever the band had handy at the time. Lots of keyboards again on this one, but the guitar continues to stay a bit in the background. Yield To Temptation, the third part of The Embrace That Smothers, a triplet with prologue that seems to be about religion. The music becomes quite agressive and fast paced here. Ephemeral is a rather quiet track in which the voice of Floor comes out more, than her classically styled one. This also holds for Beyond Me that in the chorus reaches an emotional climax.

Conclusion

We have a word for this kind of music: meeslepend, ususually translated with compelling. Slow gloomy vs. agressively fast paced, classical vs. metal, soprano vs. grunt, lots of contrasts on this album, but all in line with the progmetal spirit. Think of Rhapsody, but less over the top and darker, think The Gathering but better sung, think Forever Times, but a class better on record. The band has strong Gothic tendencies in the lyrics. Although at times Floor lets emotion shine through in her voice (Silence From Afar for instance) the classically styled vocals have a tendency to sound a bit cold. I would prefer her to show her own voice a bit more (like on Ephemeral and the beginning of Beyond Me). This very subjective comment however should not do anything to keep you anyway from this very complete album.