Epica

Epica, a Dutch symphonic metal band, fuses opera, orchestral passages, thrash, groove, folk, progressive, gothic, power, and death metal on standout releases such as Consign to Oblivion (2005), The Divine Conspiracy (2007), and Design Your Universe (2009). Mark Jansen, the guitarist and singer from After Forever, launched the project, which moved from local recognition to global reach with the 2012 Billboard-charting album Requiem for the Indifferent. The band maintained its leading position in the symphonic metal field through the following decade by delivering Omega in 2021 and initiating a new album cycle in 2024 with the single "Arcana."

Holland's Epica originated in 2002 under the name Sahara Dust after Mark Jansen left After Forever, the outfit he had co-created, to realize an operatic metal venture of his own. He assembled teenage mezzo-soprano Simone Simons, guitarist Ad Sluijter, keyboardist Coen Janssen, bassist Yves Huts, and drummer Jeroen Simons, then took the lineup into Germany's Gate Studio in Wolfsburg alongside a classically trained choir and string section to capture the debut album The Phantom Agony. Transmission Records put out the ambitious recording in late 2003, yielding multiple singles.

Early momentum led to the 2005 follow-up Consign to Oblivion, which also performed strongly on Dutch charts. Following a shift to Nuclear Blast and the arrival of drummer Ariën van Weesenbeek, Epica issued its first conceptual work, The Divine Conspiracy, in 2007; that album registered across Europe, as did 2009's Design Your Universe, which matched the group's highest Dutch placement at number eight and introduced guitarist Isaac Delahaye.

Requiem for the Indifferent, the fifth studio album, surfaced in 2012 as Epica's first to register in both the U.K. and U.S. charts; bassist Rob van der Loo then replaced Yves Huts. In March 2013 the ensemble marked its tenth anniversary with a special Eindhoven concert later issued as Retrospect, which included appearances by former members Ad Sluijter, Jeroen Simons, and Yves Huts. The Quantum Enigma arrived the next year as the first studio album featuring Rob van der Loo. Holographic Principle, released in 2016, was characterized by Simone Simons in a Spark TV interview as the band's "most ambitious offering to date." The Solace System, Epica's initial EP, followed in 2017 alongside a North American tour supporting Lacuna Coil.

In 2020 the group announced its eighth studio album, Omega, though pandemic conditions postponed the project until early 2021. With touring halted by lockdown, Epica instead captured an elaborate, effects-heavy live performance without an audience—complete with backup dancers and pyrotechnics—for online streaming, later issued as the audiovisual package Omega Alive at year's end. The stand-alone single "Arcana," a expansive and mystical track carrying a polished alternative/modern rock texture, appeared in 2024.