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Reviews, Videos

“We Will Take You With Us” (DVD) by Epica

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Artist: Epica
Title: “We Will Take You With Us”
Label: The End/Transmission Records
Release Date: 8/9/2005
Genre: Symphonic Gothic Metal
Rating: 7/10

Released in tandem for the CD bearing the same name Epica gives us the visual side to “We Will Take You With Us”. Filmed in the studio as the band recorded the CD, this DVD shows the group playing their hearts out in a very non-descript room with their full choir and string sections. Fans of the CD or their debut release “The Phantom Agony” will enjoy this right off the bat but I feel that new fans might not be so taken with it. It is a simple reasoning on the way this is laid out for given that this is a studio session recording it does not offer you much in the visual sense and can come across as quite boring when you realize you are just watching them play with limited motion or sitting. Mark Jansen speaks before almost every song but this is in Dutch with no subtitles. This should have been addressed before issuing this product on the world at large as I know that I would have found it nice to understand what he was talking about before each song. Performance wise this is a great product as their level of play is incredible and while the acoustic numbers are nice I leaned towards the full band and symphonic pieces that make up the early section of the performance. There is one main difference in the DVD from the CD and that is in the omission of the German version of “Run For A Fall” which was included as a bonus on the CD. It should have been left on the DVD to be honest, there was no reason to cut it.
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Music, Reviews

“We Will Take You With Us” by Epica

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Artist: Epica
Title: “We Will Take You With Us”
Label: The End/Transmission Records
Release Date: 8/9/2005
Genre: Symphonic Metal
Rating: 8/10

Dutch Symphonic Metal sensation Epica bring us a very special recording as a follow-up to their debut album “The Phantom Agony”. On “We Will Take You With Us (2 Meter Sessies) the group presents to the listener a “live-in the studio” recording of their entire debut album with strings and full choir. To make sure that this is not taken as a clone of the first album the group also offers a couple of these numbers performed acoustically and features one unreleased song. This was a band that I found quite by accident when I was looking into After Forever. When I read that Epica (formerly called Sahara Dust) was formed by the guitarist who had left After Forever I knew this would be in the vein of music that I was appreciating. Mark Jansen’s discovery of Simone Simons allowed him to being a different level of player to the Operatic Fronted Metal band and this is surely not a secondary version of his former group either. A singer like Simone Simons brings the Mezzo Soprano as band superstar a possibility and showcasing an album where they perform live in a closed setting shows you that this group can indeed play and does so with very little difference from the fully recorded and produced release “The Phantom Agony”. Those that already own the debut might find this interesting more for the variations and the bonus tracks.
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