Staying in Europe; This time with big hair, symphonic orchestral choir backed operatic female singer led metal band Epica.
As with Nightwish, Edenbridge and Therion before it, Epica arrived in my life during a scour of Usenet for interesting new music based on them appearing on a compilation and by how much people protested about me playing the music.
Tight leather pants wearing flame headed Simone Simons compliments (in the loosest sense of the word) grunt vocalist and guitarist Mark Jansen in a band backed by choir and orchestra playing predominantly some variation of symphonic heavy metal akin to other European, Scandinavian and Dutch bands of the time.
For some (usually long haired youths with confidence issues, tattoos and bad facial hair) the presence of someone like Simons on posters, album covers and Youtube videos tends to encourage popularity even if the majority of your music is shite. See Within Temptation for example. Sadly, in my case, it isn’t lack of tattoos and bad facial hair that puts me off, however it is age, sensibility and the loss of friends that has brought me to the point where I listen to this music and think: “WTF is this shite I’m listening to?”
Consign to Oblivion? Consign to the bin more like.
Stegzy's Music Project 
[…] Rasmus – In the Shadows 4:16 2 Within Temptation – Running Up That Hill 3:57 3 Epica – The Phantom Agony 9:00 4 Nightwish – End of All Hope 3:54 5 After Forever – […]