Customer Reviews

Invisible Circles

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

At this moment I'm listening to this brandnew cd, it's still warm from the press. After Forever continue where they have stopped after Decipher. This new cd is a conceptcd which tells a story of a 14-year old girl, queen in her own fantasyworld, but in real life filled with hate for the world and especially her parents. Maybe not a very happy theme, but the music is brilliant. Beautiful violins and piano's are completed with the superb voice of Floor Jansen, heavy guitars and low grunts.

Invisible circles is definitely worth buying if you are in to this kind of music and in my humble opinion they deserve to become well-known all over the world.

In my opinion, this is the best album of 2004 :)

I'll start by mentioning the good things about this album

POSTIVES

VOCALS: Wow. Floor is AMAZING. And I used to think Mariah Carey was a good singer. My mistake.
The growls aren't bad either, although some people have complained about them.
MUSIC: For music it's solid. There aren't really any guitar solos, so it's nothing special, but it's nicely arranged, so the music is good. The keyboards are awesome!
LYRICS/STORY: As you all probably know by now, this album tells the story of an abused girl, and the lyrics are written in a play format, meaning several songs have dialouge. In addition the album insides have the girls diary entries, so you can follow along with the story. It's very well written, and may put a tear in your eye.

NEGATIVES

VARIETY: Unfortunately, I have to give this album a star below what it deserves, because there just isn't much variety in the songs. But I guess it's not that big of a deal, because I love every song on this CD.

SONG HIGHLIGHTS

CHILDHOOD IN MINOR- This isn't one of my favorite, and none the less its not even really a song. It's an intro, and a rather creepy one at that. It sets the mood for the album, but eventually fades into the choirs at the begining of "Beautiful Emptiness"

BETWEEN LOVE AND FIRE- Floor and the growler, Sander, exchange vocal duties in this song. Floor plays the mother, and Sander plays the father. Basically, the song explains what happened before the little girl was born.

ECCENTRIC- A beautiful piano ballad that tells the feelings of the girl after a rough day at school. It may put a tear in your eye when you first hear it.

VICTIM OF CHOICES- The climax of the album, which features Sander, Floor, and the choir. I'm not going to give too much away, because you'll have to figure out what happens for yourself.

Overall, this album is definitely worth every penny. In an age where songs about money, sex, and bling are considered "Great Music", it's good to know that bands like After Forever still make music about issues in society that have a meaning

I've only bought "INVISIBLE CIRCLES" yesterday, but I must say it gave me already a very good impression of the 'new' After Forever'. The style is very different than the previous album "DECIHPER". This time, there is a more down-to-earth theme instead of the more 'fantasy'-like style of the previous albums. It's a concept-album that tells us the story of a 14-year old girl and her parents. She is hated by everyone and seeks a refuge into TV and internet. The 12 tracks fit together like a puzzle. This time there are also less choir-vocals and orchestral arrangements in the music. Every track has its charme; from the instrumental intro (CHILDHOOD IN MINOR), to the harder songs (BLIND PAIN, SINS OF IDEALISM), to the slower piano-song (ECCENTRIC).
Last point to review: the artwork in this limited edition is beautiful!!
So, this was everything I had to say about INVISIBLE CIRCLES.
If you're into gothic metal you'll still like this but also other metal fanatics will enjoy this gem!
It's a great! great! great! album!!

I have always been a Nightwish fan since the first song I received from someone over an instant messenger. Now that I've listened to so much of the music, it's hard to remember what I have or don't have. Yes, to be completely truthful, a lot of the gothic metal in Europe is more operetic voices such as Floor, Tarja, Simone, Sharon, but the truth is, that is true style gothic. They all have emotion behind their songs and I find that they all bring a lot more to the surface through the vocals that way. Invisible Circles shows so much emotion through the telling of a diary basically and just how things move on in life. I love the vocals and the things behind the tracks. It's absolutely marvelous. To the great vocalist behind this, Floor, I wish her the best in continued success because she is doing awesome and I love her for creating this music!

So here we are. After Forever's highly anticipated, long awaited third full length album is finally available. Well I guess it was released almost a year ago and I'm just now getting around to reviewing it.

After Forever is a Symphonic, Gothic Metal, Beauty and Beast band from the Netherlands. They are a sextet but they also use guest musicians and singers to fill out their sound so it resembles a symphonic orchestra for a sound like many other popular European Metal bands like fellow countrymen Within Temptation and Norwegian band Sirenia and not unlike Nightwish and Therion..

Invisible Circles

Invisible Circles is based on a story about a girl, who was born unwanted by her father, growing up in a loveless home. The girl learns at an early age, that she is unloved and throughout the album between the music are little suites of the parents talking and arguing. There are occasional growling vocals, which is supposed to be the girl's inner self talking to her consciousness.

Probably the most notable member of the band is their highly acclaimed singer, Floor Jansen and even she seems to be struggling on this album, as her usually flawless voice seems both stretched and strident. The music is still Symphonic Metal with a backing orchestra and choir as in previous releases. What has changed is the bands approach. Instead of the conventional medieval Beauty and Beast approach of their past the song writers have decided to veer off into a more contemporary, avant garde style. While I applaud their initiative and intent to create an operatic masterpiece, it seems they only succeeded in the creation of a soap opera.

While I'm usually taken with concept albums, Invisible Circles is an exception. In fact, for me, Invisible Circles was one of my larger musical disappointments of 2004. After Forever's previous 2001 full album, Decipher was truly a remarkable recording and I was so looking forward to more of the same but alas, they decided to thread a new path. What path is that? I'm afraid they got lost and found the path of uninteresting music. There are to few hooks, at least nothing that hooks my attention and the melodies are closer to odious than melodious. Even the concept is uninteresting, being about the trials and tribulations of an unwanted little girl growing up in an unhappy family. I can see why Mark Jansen left and formed Epica after listening to this and Exordium, their preceding lackluster EP released in 2003. He obviously was not in agreement with the band's new musical path.

I usually find Floor Jansen's voice to be perfect but for some unknown reason, on this album, I found her voice was grating, almost irritating, like she was too strident or something. Now Floor has one of the purest, most beautiful voices in the world but she seemed to be struggling at times with these songs.

I should point out that this album has received some rave reviews. God knows why but it seems there's always someone somewhere that will like something I dislike and vice versa, however, it's usually the other way around with me. When I and most other people are enthralled with a certain album, somebody will come along and rain on our parade. Well this time it's moi who is precipitating the precipitation. Not that this is a bad album, it's just a dull album, there`s nothing special.. No real highlights or highpoints and while a song may get interesting occasionally they manage to blow it before the song ends. In the past, After Forever has been one of the leading Symphonic Beauty and Beast bands and though they still show some symphonic elements, they're now leaning in a more progressive direction. There is nothing wrong with that but they're half way there and what we have is not the best of either genre and where they retain some of the old sound, they fail to close the deal. Give me back my "Leaden Legacy", "Monolith of Doubt", "Pledge of Allegiance", "The Key", "Follow the Cry" and "Forlorn Hope". Honestly, I can think of very little that appeals to me on this album.

Final Rating, 3.35 stars

Author's Note

I wrote this review over a period of a couple weeks and during that time I mellowed somewhat on this album. I originally thought I would rate this at a low two stars. I wound up giving it a high three stars. Still, overall this album is not up to the standard of their previous two releases, though it is better than I originally believed.

I really was surprised by this band. I heard a few things about them and downloaded some of their songs, before buying this, their (second?) full length. It actually exceeded my expectations. Most bands of this type (from Nightwish to Rhapsody) have very simplistic guitar arrangements to go along with their sweeping orchestral music (this is a mistake that Therion has made as well). However, After Forever have some AWESOME wicked evil guitar riffs, and their symphonic element is even better and darker than the "Night" band. Enough of comparisons though, I cannot recommend this more highly. Like Sonata Artica is taking Stratovarius's sound and making the songwriting better, After Forever is taking the gothic/metal Nightwish type sound and giving it an injection to become kings (and queens) of the throne of symphonic metal. The growling only adds to this music, and sounds awesome with Floor's amazing singing (she can do both a more traditional metal voice, as well as Opera, automatically making her a more favored singer than Nightwish's in my eyes.) Buy it.

I didn't care much for Decipher, because I really don't like the transparent, muffled texture of the guitars. But on this album, they fixed the problem, and they are truly worthy of five stars. I had considered giving it only four, for exactly one reason, but I figured all the rest cancelled it out. That one reason is that the growls are absolutely awful. I'm normally the type that likes a mix of clean vocals and growls, but on this album they sound pathetic. That's about the only thing they lost with Mark Jansen's departure. I think this is a million times better than Epica's Phantom Agony. First of all, Floor Jansen can actually sing. I don't care for Epica's Simone that much. She doesn't suck, but Floor is much better. She actually sounds like she belongs in a metal band, unlike a lot of female singers. Again, I really wasn't thrilled with her on Decipher, but here she shines. The guitar work is splendid, the synthesizer sequences fit perfectly, and the choirs and orchestral arrangements are very well put-together. Unlike a lot of bands/albums who use such arrangements, this was not a desperation move on After Forever's part. The story line is very interesting, although there are some lyrics that get a tad repetitive. But with everything else going on on this album, you tend to forget. This is quickly becoming my favorite female-fronted metal band (which really isn't saying much, as the novelty of such bands has worn off, but believe me, this band is good). I recommend this easily over anything by Nightwish, Edenbridge, Lacuna Coil, or Within Temptation. The only albums of 2004 (of this subgenre) that I feel deserve to be on the same level as this are Lovelorn by Leaves' Eyes and the masterpiece An Elixir For Existence by Sirenia. Get this TODAY!!!

Nothing is worse than seeing a promising young band take a turn in a direction you despise, and such is the case with the Dutch Gothic Metal band After Forever.

Since when did one of the brightest rising stars in Gothic Metal decide they want to be Evanescence? Following up from their excellent "Decipher," After Forever strip away anything remotely Gothic from their music and create this...this pitiful, maudlin excuse for a soap opera. The lyrics and concept behind "Invisible Circles" are the exact same kind of trite, overdone angst we're all thoroughly sick of here on the other side of the Atlantic.

"Invisible Cirlces" is a concept album about a girl who is miserable because she is unloved by her parents, so she hides in her own little world. The problem is that they storyline is handled in such a maudlin and melodramatic way that it's impossible to take seriously. With lyrics like "I can't believe how they can be so mean / If they could feel the brutal stings of their words /And the bitter cold when they laugh", it's hard to see anyone but some whiny, self-pitying teenage "Gawth" finding "Invisible Circles" anything but needlessly mawkish and bathetic. To top it all off, the band decided to insert scenes of "dialogue" between the characters of the mother and father, which were so hilariously bad I laughed out loud listening to them.

The music has suffered as well. Gone are the rich, classical influences of "Decipher," replaced by generic metal riffs and the occasional Death Growl. Even Floor Jansen, who always sounded great on previous albums, now comes off as shrill and irritating, full of what only can be described as whiny histrionics. Not a single track on "Invisible Circles" has anything close to a memorable hook, a memorable instrumental passage, or a display of Floor's vocal talents. The symphonic element of earlier After Forever albums has been toned down a lot, and overall it sounds like the music itself has been watered down to make the whole thing more commercially digestable.

"Invisible Circles" is a huge misstep from one of Gothic Metal's most promising bands. Stay with "Prison of Desire" or "Decipher" instead.

The first time i heard "after forever" i heard the song "life's vortex" it blew me away.With it's haunting chorus and beautiful guitars it was just an "ahhhhhhhh" factor. HOWEVER-after buying the album i listened to it in one night...well actually no i couldnt stand it-- song after song of the same theme. I have to say there are only 3 "outstanding" songs on this album, other than that i found myself fast-forwarding some songs. The lead vocalist knows how to deliver a good tune, but ah well it gets kind of repetitive and in "digital deciet" it took me 5 times to warm up to the song..well i still found her voice sort of annoying. so all in all if you have listened to every album in the world then give this a go. if not, i recommend borrowing it off your friend first.

This is really a great album. Here is what i think. I'll break it in paragraphs

First, the voices. Floor has SUCH an amazing voice! It's so beautiful and powerful. She's one of my favorite singers. The growler just plain rocks! He's got a deep, deathly scream, which i love. He's awesome. Now, the male singer. Eh, he's okay. When i first heard him i didn't like him 'cause i thought he was annoying. He sounds like some old rock singer from Bon Jovi or something. But he's standable once you get used to him. Thank goodness he's in only a few songs.Oh yeah, and they have a choir in some songs. The choir is excellent.

Second, the songs. They're great! I only dislike tracks 1,6 and kind of 12. The rest are all good. I don't really have a favorite, 'cause they're all so damn good! If i HAD to choose, it would probaly be Two Sides.

Third, the lyrics. They're good. Not excellent, but good. The lyrics to the great,soft song Eccentric is a song that lots of kids/teenagers can relate to when you're teased. The whole plot of the lyrics is about a teen girl who is abused by her parents and teased by her classmates. Then when the girl gets older, she repeats thoughs mistakes. It's a sad story with a sad ending. And what i really like is that next to the lyrics, there is her diary. So basically it tells what each song is about.

Overall, this is a hell of a great album. If you like gothic metal, buy this. It's a must have and a good band!