AFTER FOREVER

After Forever was a Dutch symphonic metal band with strong progressive metal influences,^[1] relied on the use of both soprano vocals and death grunts. In February 2009 it was announced that they had disbanded.

AFTER FOREVER

After Forever was originally assembled in 1995 under the name Apocalypse,[2] playing music most oriented towards death metal.[2] With the joining of vocalist Floor Jansen in 1997, their style shifted slightly to a more symphonic metal sound in order to give emphasis to her voice. Their line-up at this point comprised Floor Jansen, Mark Jansen, Sander Gommans, Luuk van Gerven, Jack Driessen and Joep Beckers.

In 1999 the band begun composing songs of their own and recorded two demos - entitled Ephemeral and Wings Of Illusion - which eventually drew the attention of the Transmission Records label, with whom the band signed a contract.

Their debut album Prison Of Desire was recorded in 2000, featuring the guest appearance of Sharon den Adel. The album obtained impressive success in Europe. In the end of that year, drummer André Borgman and keyboardist Lando van Gils joined the band, replacing Joep Beckers and Jack Driessen.

In 2001, the album Decipher was released. Floor Jansen was invited to guest sing in Ayreon, one of Arjen Anthony Lucassen's projects. In 2002 Mark Jansen was fired from After Forever and subsequently assembled the band Epica,[3] being replaced by Bas Maas. In 2003, After Forever released the EP and DVD Exordium.

In 2004, the concept album Invisible Circles was released. In this album, After Forever introduced progressive metal elements to their music. The album reached 26th place in the Dutch Top 100 musical chart. Lando van Gils also left the band and was replaced by Joost van den Broek in the same year.

In early September 2005, the band released their fourth album Remagine This album is available in two versions, an SACD with three bonus songs and as a ‘Special Edition’ with a DVD. The DVD contains a photo gallery and a 'making of' documentary.

On March 3, 2006, the band left the Transmission Records label, due to the scarce promotion that the label was providing. Following this, Transmission Records released the Mea Culpa compilation. By October of the same year After Forever had signed to Nuclear Blast Records.

In the end of 2006 the band recorded their 1st album on the Nuclear Blast label, self titled After Forever, it features guest appearances from Annihilator guitarist Jeff Waters and Doro Pesch. Videos of the recording sessions are available for download on the band website. The album was released in April 23, 2007.

In January 2008, After Forever announced on their website that the band would be taking a break of at least a year. In an interview with Ragnarök radio, Floor said the band would get together early 2009 to discuss After Forever's future. [4]

On February 5th 2009 , After Forever announced that they decided to call it quits. The break in 2008, and partly 2009, made them realize that they do not feel the energy towards the band anymore.">

Lacuna Coil

">

Lacuna Coil is an Italian rock band from Milan, Italy, formed in 1994.[4][5] Formerly known as Sleep of Right and Ethereal, the band was inspired by the combination of gothic imagery and music, and the members have been known, musically, for composing midtempo songs consisting of guitar lines overlaid with prominent keyboard work, and contrasting dual female/male vocal harmonies to help create a melodic detached sound. Much of the band's recent material, however, sees a heavier and more down-tuned style, featuring a more distinct bass line and a higher mixing of the guitars within the songs.

The band's 2006 release, Karmacode peaked at number 28 on the Billboard 200. Their latest release, Shallow Life, debuted at number 16 on the Billboard charts. The album marks the band diverging their sound from gothic metal to straight-forward alternative hard rock.

CHECK THAT VIDEO

Tristania's music is usually classified as Gothic Metal with Death/Doom influences (especially on the early albums), due to its strong ties with the goth metal's history. The band name could be one of these two things:
- It could refer to the Tristania flower or;
- 'Trist' means 'Sad' in Romanian and 'Tristania' can be translated 'The land of sadness'

On their first releases the band had a sound based on melodic death metal riffs with dominant eerie keyboard and powerful drums, and choirs. A strong influence in their music is also doom metal, which can be heard in the slow, melancholic riffing. Tristania put a lot of focus around operatic female vocals, haunting choruses and classical instruments such as pipe organ, flutes and violins. There was a bigger focus also on the death vocals of Morten Veland. This combination of death vocals with female operatics and majestic gothic choruses is believed by many fans to have reached its pinnacle on their Beyond The Veil album.

In recent years Tristania stepped back from the bombastic layer-over-layer productions and focused more on balancing the various vocal styles and progressing their sound without losing the overall feeling.

On their fourth album Ashes the vocal duties were done by the following:

* (Operatic) female vocals - provided by Vibeke Stene.
* Death Vocals (grunts, growls and screams) - done by Kjetil Ingebrethsen and guitarist Anders Høyvik Hidle.
* Clean vocals (hollow baritone) - provided by Østen Bergøy.

Their newest album, Illumination, featured the same vocalists minus Kjetil. There are fewer grunts on the new album compared to their previous work, and the ones that do appear are courtesy of Vorph from the band Samael.">

WITHIN TEMPTATION

Within Temptation is a Dutch rock/metal band. The band was founded in 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and guitarist Robert Westerholt.[2] Their music is described as symphonic metal,[3] gothic metal[4] ,[3][5][6] although in an interview, Den Adel said they fell into a symphonic rock genre with various influences,[7] and in a later interview with 3VOOR12, Sharon stated that "we consider ourselves more a symphonic rock band ... we are in my opinion no gothic band".[8][9]

After the release of their first album Enter, the band became prominent in the underground scene.[citation needed] However it was not until 2001 that they became known to the general public, with the single "Ice Queen" from the album Mother Earth, which reached #2 on the Dutch charts.[2] Since then, the band won the Conamus Exportprijs[10] five years in a row. Their next album The Silent Force debuted at #1 on the Dutch charts, as did their latest, The Heart of Everything. In 2008 they released a live DVD and CD, Black Symphony, recorded with the Metropole Orchestra.

On August 11, 2009 Within Temptation announced that they would be releasing a live album consisting of acoustic sets from their theatre tour, entitled An Acoustic Night At The Theatre [11], which was released on October 30th.

OTHER PICTURES

Anabantha

Anabantha is a Gothic metal band from Mexico, founded in 1997. In 2005, they recorded their album "Without Saying Goodbye". In 2006, they signed with Mexican Label Discos y Cintas Denver.

History

The band began in 1997 with Duan Marie on vocals and Vlad Landeros on keyboards, performing under the name Sentido Pésame. In 1998, the band changed its name to Transdellic (Trans = beyond; Dellos = visible), and added Jimmy Gallozo on drums). After recording several demos, the band hired Vlad Landeros as their new drummer, and recorded Letanías Chapter I. In 2002, the band line-up was Duan and Vlad, who released Without Saying Goodbye. In 2003 they recorded the demo Letanías Chapter II. In 2004 they recorded their demo disc Acoustic, which included tributes to the poets Pablo Neruda and Lovecraft.

In 2005, the band recorded "Without Saying Goodbye" (IDM Records), first as a promotional disc with 9 tracks and later as a double disc (Spanish and English). The album includes a cover of the 1970s band Shocking Blue's song Never Marry a Railroad Man. In 2006, the band signed Mexican label Discos y Cintas Denver. They then recorded "Letanías Chapter I", which includes two unreleased tracks,and they re-edited Letanías Forbidden Chapter with two bonus live tracks.

In 2007, band did a tour celebrating their tenth anniversary, which involved travel to Latin AmericanBolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The band also released Letanías Chapter III, a CD of Cry Freedom, which includes music from "Phantom of the Opera". cities in Mexico,

Beauty and the beast

The term "beauty and the beast" refers to the aesthetic contrasts, a clean female voice or singing soprano with aggressive or guttural masculinos.Una of the bands that used this type is more Draconian. Paradise Lost and The Gathering and had used this technique in some songs from earlier albums, but it is the Norwegian Theater of Tragedy, that the, release of their eponymous first LP is devoted to this use of the technique in 1995. The second album Velvet Darkness They Fear came the following year. The third album, Theater of Tragedy Aegis (1998), the band ventures into fresh musical territory. The piano is replaced by electronic keyboards, while Raymond Rohonyi opted to eliminate their guttural voices for singing or too soft sometimes whispers. The music on this album was more clean and smooth, shedding the distortion of the guitar but compensated with a full performance that prompted many European critics to give perfect revisions to Aegis. Other groups which contrast male vocal and aggressive clean female vocals continued to emerge in the late 1990s. Trail of Tears was formed in 1994, emerged as Tristania and The Sins of Thy Beloved in 1996. The three Norwegian groups released their debut album in 1998. Tristania deviates from the other groups, with their use of three different vocal styles: the operatic soprano Vibeke Stene, baritone Østen Bergøy and style guttural death-black metal type of Morten Veland. In His second album Beyond the Veil of 1999 were used ten-member choir and violin passages leading contributor also Pete Johansen in The Sins of Thy Beloved and Sirenia, winning "to rave reviews" for Europe. By then, the band had risen to the top of gothic metal with symphonic approach to improvement. They had a creative heavyweight in the composition and image when the singer, guitarist and main songwriter Morten Veland left the group to form Sirenia. But Tristania continued to prosper with subsequent release and is considered one of the most important bands in the world of gothic metal. For this decade, the art of beauty and the beast, has flourished with many representatives from the European continent. Cradle of Filth also became known for making use of this technique by Liv Kristine and guest vocalists Sarah Jezebel Deva. A few critics complain that the approach to this technique has led to the disappearance of many bands, to the point that has become a cliché in the genre of gothic metal.

LEAVES EYES

Leaves' Eyes was formed by Liv Kristine's (lead singer) husband Alexander Krull and members of his band Atrocity. The band combines atmospheric, heavy metal and classical elements. The melodic singing vocals of Liv Kristine are occasionally backed up by death growled vocals from Krull, identified under the vocal stye Kristine refers to as "beauty and the beast".

Their debut album, Lovelorn, was released in 2004. The second album, Vinland Saga, was released 30th of May 2005, and retells the tale of the discovery of Vinland (i.e. North America) by Leif Erikson. The EP Legend Land was released on June 2, 2006 as a followup to Vinland Saga.

Liv Kristine thought of the band name, which is a homophone for her first name. Leaves is connected to nature, which has always been the biggest inspiration for her. Liv Kristine writes all of the lyrics for the band. [1]

Leaves' Eyes are currently working on their first DVD, which was recorded during a show in Belgium. It will be called We Came with the Northern Winds - En Saga I Belgia and is due February 27, 2009.[2]. They supported Blind Guardian on their North American tour in November 2006.[3] It was released in February 2009. They were scheduled to tour with Kamelot and Fairyland, as well as King Diamond and Kreator in 2008 but the tour has since been cancelled due to King Diamond suffering a serious back injury.

In February 2008, Leaves Eyes were confirmed to appear at the 2008 Wacken Open Air Festival.[4] '"We Came with the Northern Winds: En Saga I Belgia" was released in March 2009 as a double CD & DVD box set.

Their third and latest album Njord was released August 28th 2009 and the EP My Destiny was released on July 24th 2009.

Vocal Styles

There is a diverse range of vocal styles in gothic metal. The male singers in the genre range from guttural growls of death metal and black metal screams like Dani Filth and Morten Veland, the magistrates as Østen Bergøy tenor and baritone Peter Steele. For women, the different vocal styles include the screams and groans of Cadaveria, vocal style "pop" Tanja from Lullacry Lainio and style of operatic soprano Vibeke Stene of Tristania and Tarja Turunen. There are more female singers in the gothic metal than any other subgenre of heavy metal, but the vocals are not necessarily synonymous with the genre. Liv Kristine Theater of Tragedy and Leaves' Eyes label mentions that gothic metal is often misunderstood and said that "not every band with female vocalist is a gothic metal band" Gender is also known to attract more fans than other subgenres of heavy metal.

Gothic Metal Bands

Although there are an infinite number of genres from rock, we are interested in a particular genre, that more than a genre of rock, it's considered a lifestyle, a culture which is also called undergound which is a subcultural movement existing in several countries. It started in the UK between late 1970 and mid 1980 in the gothic rock scene, a derivation of the Post-Punk. His aesthetic and cultural biases are mainly from the influences of horror literature, horror films among others. The goth subculture shared aesthetic tastes, musical and cultural common ground. Although Gothic music encompasses several sub-genres and styles, all of these share a tendency to look and sound "dark" or "dark." Styles of dress within the subculture took inspiration from death rock, punk, androgynous style, and even the Renaissance style of dress, but goths are very aesthetic that focuses on black: black suits , pale makeup to highlight her face and even lipstick applied black or red lips. It is important to note, however, that not everyone who dresses in Gothic style agreement is considered Goth by members of the subculture. Similarly, not all goths wear black nor are always on.

Gothic metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music. It is characterized as a combination of the dark melancholy of gothic rock with the aggression of heavy metal music. The genre originated during the early 1990s in Europe as an outgrowth of death/doom, a fusion of death metal and doom metal. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music. Lyrics are generally melodramatic and mournful with inspiration from gothic fiction as well as personal experiences.

Members of metal bands such as After Forever, HIM and Nightwish have downplayed or dismissed the gothic label from their music. The issue is obscured further by bands that have since move away from gothic metal or even heavy metal music altogether, as is the case for Anathema and The Gathering.