Looking forward to this one. I still play a few tracks from Omega so hoping this is more of the same. The first 2 singles do sound a bit 'Epica by the numbers' though so I'm hoping the rest of the album has some more original ideas.

Pretty stacked year, holy crap.

Right now this shapes up to be The Holographic Principle part 2, and their worst album yet. Although Epica was always underwhelming with singles, and rocking with albums, so we will see, but I am worried. This sound shifting back to generic is not what I expected after Omega

Whaaaat a dull generic album. Such a letdown. After "Arcana" I thought they might be coming up with something more catchy and melodic and also a bit new, however most of the songs have zero memorable melodies, riffs and heavy parts sound very boring. Just a B-sides of their whole career.

The Quantum Enigma remains the last great release by Epica.

First listen musings: not great, and also kinda meh. It just sounded weird, and not in a good way.
Omega was a great listen from the get-go, so this is kinda letdown. Hopefully it will grow with more listens?

I really liked Omega, this has its moments but in the end its just ok. Between 7-7.5 it's fair, i'll give it a couple more listens

Very underwhelming compared to Omega. Some parts are seriously annoying like that spoken sample in Aspiral (wtf is that anyway?) and horrendous children voices in T.I.M.E., fuuucking hate them

The Holographic Principle is my favourite album of theirs by far, and Omega was primarily an enjoyable listen. Unfortunately, I'm not finding much to enjoy here outside of a few tracks.

Uninspiral

Their worst in many years. Very poppified and commercial. It's like heavier Delain or smth

Written by Furiator on 12.03.2025 at 17:50

Right now this shapes up to be The Holographic Principle part 2, and their worst album yet. Although Epica was always underwhelming with singles, and rocking with albums, so we will see, but I am worried. This sound shifting back to generic is not what I expected after Omega

You know a band is really fucking consistent when their worst album has bangers like Beyond the Matrix and Universal Death Squad.

I’m always excited about a new Epica album, they know their craft and execute it perfectly. Sure my favorite album is Design Your Universe, but I can’t say I’ve ever been disappointed by any of their releases or live performances. I really like how they don’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel at each album, just bring a couple of new ideas in and keep on pushing high quality material.

20 years following Epica since their debut and still is a safe bet. This band never dissapoints, they have better or worse albums but the overall level of quality is impressive. Few listens in and it is already growing. Nice.

Oh, wow .... beautiful songs and nice composed.
absolutely nothing wrong with this new album.

Epica has a trend of releasing one great album followed by an average one since Design Your Universe and this is no exception. I wonder if it’s a formula to keep album sales higher or growing the fan base (though I suppose it could be argued that it has the opposite effect psychologically).

The only track worth a listen — by a landslide — is “Arcana”.

Good and solid effort, but it comes a little bit short comparing to their previous release Omega. It has some great tracks, for sure, but it feels uninspired at times aswell.