Band:	Epica
Album:	The Divine Conspiracy
Style:	Symphonic metal
Release date:	September 07, 2007
Guest review by:	TheJester

Disc I
01. Indigo (Intro)
02. The Obsessive Devotion
03. Menace Of Vanity
04. Chasing The Dragon
05. Never Enough
06. La'petach Chatat Rovetz (The Last Embrace)
07. Death Of A Dream (The Embrace That Smothers - Part VII)
08. Living A Lie (The Embrace That Smothers - Part VIII)
09. Fools Of Damnation (The Embrace That Smothers - Part IX)
10. Beyond Belief
11. Safeguard To Paradise
12. Sancta Terra
13. The Divine Conspiracy

Disc II [limited edition]
01. Replica [Fear Factory cover]
02. Higher High
03. Never Enough [long version]
+ Never Enough [video]
+ Making of Never Enough video

This is my first review, so don't get too harsh, thank you in advance.

First of all I wanna note that I have a love/hate relationship with this album; don't get me wrong, even though the album is a masterpiece, I saw the potential in some points they didn't use. For example, overusing growls even though they have a vocalist such as Simone, but okay. At some moments growls ruined some epic moments for me (for example, the last minute in "Chasing The Dragon").

The band did their job perfectly with exception of the quality of the growls; I listen a lot to melodic death and melodic doom metal so I'm pretty picky when it comes to the growls. The guitar work is absolutely flawless, and if I'm right, on this album we got our first Epica guitar solo? Maybe I'm wrong.

Another thing that was bothering me were the oriental elements. This is 100% my subjective opinion so don't get it too personal, I'm just not a fan. Even though I can't deny that "Fools Of Damnation" is a masterpiece.

So let's focus more on good side of this album. The choir and Janssen on keyboards did amazing jobs bringing atmosphere to life and giving every song so many epic(A) moments. I love the lyrical theme of wrong sides of religion written by Mark and Simone. Drums were pretty good throughout the whole album; there were some moments when I was completely speechless. And last but not least is what makes Epica Epica, and what makes symphonic metal what it is... Simone Simons. Angelic voice evolving from album to album. Orgasmic vocal harmonies throughout the whole album. If I had to choose one favorite vocal part, it would be the chorus of ''Sancta Terra". That part is so hard to sing, in a short time gap there are transitions from low to very high falsetto. It requires a lot of work and talent to hit the right note and not to run out of breath.

The production is more than good for that period of time. Maybe I would just give less effects to growls and add some volume for bass and that's it.

All in all, The Divine Conspiracy is very good, and right now I'm not sure if it is my favorite (struggling between this one and Consign To Oblivion - I've listened just to the first three albums so far), but in my opinion, even the songs I didn't like that much had so much potential ("Menace Of Vanity", "The Obsessive Devotion", "Death Of A Dream").

Highlights of the album: "Chasing The Dragon", "Never Enough", "Living A Lie", "Fools Of Damnation", "Beyond Belief", "Sancta Terra"