Invisible Circles
Encyclopedia
Invisible Circles is the third studio album by Dutch
symphonic metal
band After Forever
. It was released on 25 March 2004, by the small Dutch label Transmission Records. It is After Forever's first full-length album since the dismissal of guitarist and composer Mark Jansen
, whose musical tastes had strongly influenced the sound of their first work Prison of Desire
(2000) and their successful second offering Decipher
(2001). In this work After Forever choose a new musical direction, mostly revolving around elements of progressive metal
instead of the gothic
and symphonic metal of previous albums. The creative process for Invisible Circles took more than a year and required the use of three recording studios in the Netherlands and Germany. A long tour to support the album brought the band to some of the most important European rock festivals and to Central and South America.
Invisible Circles is a concept album
about the dynamics of quarrelsome families and psychological child abuse. The theme was inspired by guitarist Sander Gommans
' work as an art teacher, in direct contact with dysfunctional families
and teen-age problems. It is also a metal opera
, with a storyline that follows the lives of an abused child and her parents since her conception to adulthood. The album was received with mixed reviews, but entered the charts in the Netherlands and Belgium.
, Within Temptation
, Gorefest
and Ayreon
. Their second album Decipher
(2001) had received very positive reviews and their name was well known in the underground scene of the Netherlands. Critics were impressed by the remarkable musicianship of the young members of the band and in particular by Floor Jansen’s vocals, both in studio and in live performances. In contrast with these premises for a bright future, the relationships within the band were not so idyllic. Soon after the release of Decipher, After Forever faced a strong creative contrast between founding member and guitarist Mark Jansen
and the rest of the band. Mark Jansen had been the main composer of the band together with Sander Gommans
and his love for movie soundtracks and classical music had had a strong influence on the musical style of After Forever’s first two albums, Prison of Desire
(2000) and Decipher. Moreover, his interest for religious and moral themes had characterized his lyrics for many songs, often collected under a common title (e.g. The Embrace That Smothers
and My Pledge of Allegiance). In the next album, Jansen meant to further explore complex interactions between classical instruments, choruses in Latin and death metal
elements, while Gommans and the others preferred a more direct and aggressive approach to music, retaining some elements that made the sound of the band recognizable, but expanding it in new and different directions. These musical differences led to Mark Jansen leaving the band, in what he felt as an actual dismissal.
He quickly formed another band called Sahara Dust, which later developed into the symphonic metal band Epica
. His place was taken by Bas Maas, who had been the guitar technician for After Forever during the tours of 2001 and 2002. August and September 2002 were dedicated to a European tour, supporting Finnish act Nightwish
and attending some rock festivals, which exposed the band to larger audiences and gained them even more favourable press. Further media exposure came from Floor Jansen
's collaboration with Dutch multi-instrumentalist and composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen
, for the recording of Star One
's album Space Metal
and the subsequent tour in late 2002. Jansen's activities, as well as the regular jobs and studies of the After Forever band members, reduced the band's live performances for the rest of 2002 and half of 2003. It was known that the band was working at a new album from the beginning of 2003, but their first release was the EP Exordium
in October 2003, containing an instrumental track, three new songs and two covers.
In Jansen’s words "the EP Exordium was like an introduction to this new full length album and the subjects of the lyrics are already connected to the concept (...) meaning they are also dealing with modern, social problems".
The reviewers noticed some musical changes in the new work, but some of them suspended their judgement, waiting for a full album to express their opinions about the new course of After Forever.
The plot revolves around a dysfunctional family
, comprising a father, a mother, their daughter and the father's mother. The story begins with two lovers, whose relationship is running dry. They decide to have a child, which the woman believes may save their relationship ("Between Love and Fire"). The birth of a baby girl destroys in the mother her hopes for a brilliant professional career and smothers her passion. On the other hand, the newborn child causes in the father a stiffening of his feelings and the refusal to compromise his career for a "spoilt brat" ("Sins of Idealism"). The girl, perceived in the family as an unwanted burden, tries to adapt to the psychological abuse she receives, but she is the object of frequent quarrels and grows sad and depressed ("Beautiful Emptiness"). She searches for quietness and strength in her inner fantasy world, and friendship and love on the internet, becoming ever more detached from the real world and eccentric in the eyes of her schoolmates and parents ("Eccentric", "Digital Deceit", "Through Square Eyes"). The line of pain that connects the child to her parents appears indestructible and the situation gets worse when the father thinks of leaving ("Blind Pain", "Two Sides"). The intervention of the girl's grandmother reveals that the father was himself a neglected child and a victim of his family ("Victim of Choices"). The father's anger is a reaction to his abuse as a child and this realization seems to soften the girl's pain, bringing her out of her defensive shell ("Reflections"). In conclusion, the grown-up daughter, now a mother herself, faces the same dilemmas of her parents and is bound to repeat her parents' mistakes, closing the invisible circle that endures from one generation to another ("Life's Vortex").
, working at the same time on new songs for the EP Exordium. This part of the creative process had been shared with Mark Jansen for the previous albums and it would be shared with keyboard player Joost van den Broek
for the following ones. Gommans wrote the songs for the new album with the precise idea of pushing the music of the band closer to progressive metal
, reducing the gothic atmospheres of the previous releases to a minimum and adopting as many different musical styles as he felt necessary to the convey the message of the songs. Meanwhile, his fiancée Floor Jansen was writing the lyrics and shaping the plot for the concept album.
The band reunited at Excess Studios in Rotterdam
in July 2003, a few weeks after recording Exordium, to arrange the new songs and to record the instrumental tracks, under supervision of producer Hans Pieters and sound engineer Dennis Leidelmeijer. Every member of the band contributed to the music, which is credited for the most part to all six musicians. When the instrumental tracks were ready, the band moved in August 2003 to Gate Studio in Wolfsburg
, Germany, where all solo vocal parts were arranged by the band, under supervision of American singer and producer Amanda Somerville
. She also contributed, along with Jay Lansford, the recited parts that connect the songs to each other and explain parts of the plot. The solo vocals of Jansen, Gommans and Bas Maas were recorded separately by producers Sascha Paeth
and Michael “Miro” Rodenberg
. Female soprano vocals, grunts and clean male vocals represent in the songs different feelings and behaviours of the characters. The final stage of the recording process was executed at Arts Music Recording studio in Rhoon
from 20 to 24 October 2003, under supervision of Peter Arts. The orchestra and choir parts were arranged there by Cees’ Kieboom, who also contributed some additional keyboards to smooth the transition between the different instrumental parts. The final mixing of all the parts was executed by Sascha Paeth at The Pathway Studio in Wolfsburg, Germany in November and December 2003, except the instrumental introduction "Childhood in Minor" mixed by Sander Gommans. The album was mastered at Sound Factory by Peter van 't Riet for a release in early 2004.
Invisible Circles was released by Trasmission Records on 25 March 2004. "Digital Deceit
" was the only single issued from the album and released on 20 May 2004. A high tech video clip was produced for the song by D'iMages, the same company that had done the video clip for the 2003 single "My Choice
", extracted from Exordium. The video was aired on Dutch MTV
and on local musical TV stations.
The photos of the band were taken by Dutch photographer Angelique van Woerkom in November 2003 and each member dressed in a tight black and blue suit with a lightning motif, the same colors of the CD sleeve. The same suits were used for the video clip of the single "Digital Deceit" and sometimes appeared in live shows during the following tour.
Two months after the release of the album, keyboard player Lando van Gils left the band on amicable terms. He played his last gig with the band at The Bosuil, Weert
, on 14 May 2004. He was replaced by keyboard player Joost van der Broek, coming from the Dutch progressive rock band Sun Caged
, who completed the rest of the tour. Van den Broek had played with Floor Jansen during the Star One tour of 2002, where he also met Gommans. The tour brought the band to play at the important Graspop
, Pinkpop and Dynamo
festivals in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Pinkpop Festival performance on 30 May 2004, was televised for a Dutch TV station. The first leg of the tour culminated with the performance at the Wacken Open Air
festival, on 7 August 2004.
New dates of the tour were added at the end of the year, but some shows were cancelled when drummer André Borgman was admitted to a hospital and diagnosed with lung cancer
at an initial stage. The official site of the band reported the news of Borgman’s illness and confirmed some shows, with Ayreon, Star One and Gorefest drummer Ed Warby
standing-in for Borgman.
The band spent the first half of 2005 concentrating on the material for the new album Remagine
, while Borgman received intensive treatment to cure his cancer. Luckily, the cures were successful and Borgman was back behind his drum kit for the final leg of the Invisible Circles tour in South America in August 2005.
It was the general opinion of most reviewers that Floor Jansen's lead vocals are at her best and "her performance here is powerful, dramatic and very impressive overall, no matter how she chooses to sing". However, her lyrics were sometimes considered a weak point of the album, despite the fact that the band "placed as much emphasis" on them "as they did on the music". Sam Grant of Sonic Cathedral Webzine considered them "trite" and "disappointing". In particular, the spoken dialogue by Somerville and Lansford was generally considered badly acted and detrimental to the music which, on the contrary, was generally considered the strong point of the album. The change of musical direction, with the introduction of progressive metal elements, and the many variations of style adopted in the songs were generally praised, to the point that a Metal Storm
reviewer compares After Forever to "Symphony X
with Floor Jansen on vocals". Only a few reviewers remained nostalgic of the gothic and symphonic sound of Decipher and denounced a "lack of direction" and "too much confusion" in the music of the album.
The album sold enough in the Benelux
to remain in the Dutch Mega Album Top 100
chart for eleven weeks and in the Belgian Ultratop 50
Albums chart for two.
It reached the #24 position in the Netherlands and position #74 in Belgium. The single "Digital Deceit" reached the #41 position in the Single Top 100 chart in the Netherlands.
Production
Additional musicians
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
symphonic metal
Symphonic metal
Symphonic metal is a term used to describe heavy metal music that has symphonic elements; that is, elements that are either borrowed from classical music or, as with progressive rock music, create a style reminiscent of it, e.g...
band After Forever
After Forever
After Forever was a Dutch symphonic metal band with strong progressive metal influences. The band relied on the use of both soprano vocals and death grunts. In February 2009, it was announced that After Forever had disbanded.-Biography:...
. It was released on 25 March 2004, by the small Dutch label Transmission Records. It is After Forever's first full-length album since the dismissal of guitarist and composer Mark Jansen
Mark Jansen
Mark Jansen, , is a heavy metal musician.As guitarist, Jansen founded After Forever with Sander Gommans, and was one of the main songwriters since their debut album Prison of Desire. He left After Forever in 2002, and after his departure the band took a new musical direction...
, whose musical tastes had strongly influenced the sound of their first work Prison of Desire
Prison of Desire
Prison of Desire is the debut album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. It was released in 2000 in Europe. The album contains the first four installments of "The Embrace That Smothers" collection of songs by Mark Jansen...
(2000) and their successful second offering Decipher
Decipher (album)
Decipher is the second album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever, released in 2001. The music of the band reaches its full potential in this album with the use of live classical instruments and a complete choir to back up the soprano voice of lead singer Floor Jansen...
(2001). In this work After Forever choose a new musical direction, mostly revolving around elements of progressive metal
Progressive metal
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
instead of the gothic
Gothic metal
Gothic metal or goth metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that combines the aggression of doom metal with the dark melancholy of gothic rock. The music of gothic metal is diverse with bands known to adopt the gothic approach to different styles of heavy metal music...
and symphonic metal of previous albums. The creative process for Invisible Circles took more than a year and required the use of three recording studios in the Netherlands and Germany. A long tour to support the album brought the band to some of the most important European rock festivals and to Central and South America.
Invisible Circles is a concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
about the dynamics of quarrelsome families and psychological child abuse. The theme was inspired by guitarist Sander Gommans
Sander Gommans
Sander Gommans is a Dutch musician. He founded the symphonic metal band Apocalypse with Mark Jansen in 1995, which later changed its name to After Forever. He played guitar and did the grunting parts in the band...
' work as an art teacher, in direct contact with dysfunctional families
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
and teen-age problems. It is also a metal opera
Rock opera
A rock opera is a work of rock music that presents a storyline told over multiple parts, songs or sections in the manner of opera. A rock opera differs from a conventional rock album, which usually includes songs that are not unified by a common theme or narrative. More recent developments include...
, with a storyline that follows the lives of an abused child and her parents since her conception to adulthood. The album was received with mixed reviews, but entered the charts in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Background
By the end of 2001, After Forever appeared as rising stars on the dynamic scene of Dutch metal, which included bands like The GatheringThe Gathering (band)
The Gathering is a Dutch alternative rock band, founded in 1989 by brothers Hans and René Rutten and vocalist Bart Smits in the small city of Oss, North Brabant....
, Within Temptation
Within Temptation
Within Temptation is a Dutch symphonic gothic metal/rock band founded in 1996 by vocalist Sharon den Adel and guitarist Robert Westerholt. Their music is described as symphonic metal, although their earlier material, such as Enter, was gothic metal. In an interview, Den Adel said they fell into a...
, Gorefest
Gorefest
Gorefest was a Dutch band from the Zeeland region of the Netherlands which was founded in 1988 as a death metal outfit by De Koeyer, Harthoorn, van Schaik and Hoogendoorn.-History:...
and Ayreon
Ayreon
Ayreon is a project by Dutch composer and musician Arjen Anthony Lucassen.Ayreon's musical style derives mostly from heavy metal and progressive rock, but combines them with genres like folk, classical and electronica...
. Their second album Decipher
Decipher (album)
Decipher is the second album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever, released in 2001. The music of the band reaches its full potential in this album with the use of live classical instruments and a complete choir to back up the soprano voice of lead singer Floor Jansen...
(2001) had received very positive reviews and their name was well known in the underground scene of the Netherlands. Critics were impressed by the remarkable musicianship of the young members of the band and in particular by Floor Jansen’s vocals, both in studio and in live performances. In contrast with these premises for a bright future, the relationships within the band were not so idyllic. Soon after the release of Decipher, After Forever faced a strong creative contrast between founding member and guitarist Mark Jansen
Mark Jansen
Mark Jansen, , is a heavy metal musician.As guitarist, Jansen founded After Forever with Sander Gommans, and was one of the main songwriters since their debut album Prison of Desire. He left After Forever in 2002, and after his departure the band took a new musical direction...
and the rest of the band. Mark Jansen had been the main composer of the band together with Sander Gommans
Sander Gommans
Sander Gommans is a Dutch musician. He founded the symphonic metal band Apocalypse with Mark Jansen in 1995, which later changed its name to After Forever. He played guitar and did the grunting parts in the band...
and his love for movie soundtracks and classical music had had a strong influence on the musical style of After Forever’s first two albums, Prison of Desire
Prison of Desire
Prison of Desire is the debut album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. It was released in 2000 in Europe. The album contains the first four installments of "The Embrace That Smothers" collection of songs by Mark Jansen...
(2000) and Decipher. Moreover, his interest for religious and moral themes had characterized his lyrics for many songs, often collected under a common title (e.g. The Embrace That Smothers
The Embrace That Smothers
The Embrace That Smothers is the collective title for a series of songs written largely by composer Mark Jansen and with help from Floor Jansen, Sander Gommans, Simone Simons, Ad Sluijter, Coen Janssen, and Yves Huts. The songs are performed by After Forever and Epica and spread out over three...
and My Pledge of Allegiance). In the next album, Jansen meant to further explore complex interactions between classical instruments, choruses in Latin and death metal
Death metal
Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
elements, while Gommans and the others preferred a more direct and aggressive approach to music, retaining some elements that made the sound of the band recognizable, but expanding it in new and different directions. These musical differences led to Mark Jansen leaving the band, in what he felt as an actual dismissal.
He quickly formed another band called Sahara Dust, which later developed into the symphonic metal band Epica
Epica (band)
Epica is a Dutch symphonic metal band founded by guitarist and vocalist Mark Jansen subsequent to his departure from After Forever. They are known for their symphonic sound and the use of female vocals and male growls performed by Simone Simons and Mark Jansen, respectively. All six members write...
. His place was taken by Bas Maas, who had been the guitar technician for After Forever during the tours of 2001 and 2002. August and September 2002 were dedicated to a European tour, supporting Finnish act Nightwish
Nightwish
Nightwish is a Finnish symphonic metal band from Kitee, Finland. Formed in 1996 by songwriter and keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen, guitarist Emppu Vuorinen, and former vocalist Tarja Turunen, Nightwish's current line-up has five members, although Tarja has been replaced by Anette Olzon and the...
and attending some rock festivals, which exposed the band to larger audiences and gained them even more favourable press. Further media exposure came from Floor Jansen
Floor Jansen
Floor Jansen is a Dutch singer, who was the lead singer of the symphonic metal band After Forever which disbanded in 2009, and is the current singer for ReVamp.-After Forever:...
's collaboration with Dutch multi-instrumentalist and composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen
Arjen Anthony Lucassen
Arjen Anthony "Oswold Jr." Lucassen is a progressive metal/rock composer, singer and musician from the Netherlands, best known for his long-running progressive opera project titled Ayreon....
, for the recording of Star One
Star One
Star One is a Dutch progressive metal supergroup/side-project of Arjen Anthony Lucassen of Ayreon fame. Unlike Ayreon, the band did not follow one storyline; instead, each song was a different story with a sci-fi concept, most of the tracks based on existing movies and series.-Origins and first...
's album Space Metal
Space Metal (Star One album)
Space Metal is an album by Star One released on the recording label Inside Out in 2002. It was issued in two versions, a standard version containing just the first CD and a limited edition version with more elaborate packaging and both CDs....
and the subsequent tour in late 2002. Jansen's activities, as well as the regular jobs and studies of the After Forever band members, reduced the band's live performances for the rest of 2002 and half of 2003. It was known that the band was working at a new album from the beginning of 2003, but their first release was the EP Exordium
Exordium (EP)
Exordium is a 2003 EP album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. Another version of this album was released in 2004, with a bonus DVD entitled Insights. "The Evil That Men Do" is a cover of the Iron Maiden song, while "One Day I'll Fly Away" is a metal version of a ballad originally sung by...
in October 2003, containing an instrumental track, three new songs and two covers.
In Jansen’s words "the EP Exordium was like an introduction to this new full length album and the subjects of the lyrics are already connected to the concept (...) meaning they are also dealing with modern, social problems".
The reviewers noticed some musical changes in the new work, but some of them suspended their judgement, waiting for a full album to express their opinions about the new course of After Forever.
Concept and storyline
The concept of Invisible Circles was shaped by After Forever's singer and lyricist Floor Jansen, taking inspiration from Sander Gommans' job as an art teacher. His daily contact with children with social and family problems had given him the desire to make people aware of these problems by incorporating their stories into songs. He had also realized that those children's problems often stemmed from the psychological traumas that their parents had experienced in their past. Gommans described the title and the concept of the album in these terms: "Invisible Circles describes the paths of life that someone can follow. Life consists of several circles that you can follow; many times you will come back at the beginning of a circle, although you have tried to get out of that particular circle."The plot revolves around a dysfunctional family
Dysfunctional family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often abuse on the part of individual members occur continually and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such an arrangement is...
, comprising a father, a mother, their daughter and the father's mother. The story begins with two lovers, whose relationship is running dry. They decide to have a child, which the woman believes may save their relationship ("Between Love and Fire"). The birth of a baby girl destroys in the mother her hopes for a brilliant professional career and smothers her passion. On the other hand, the newborn child causes in the father a stiffening of his feelings and the refusal to compromise his career for a "spoilt brat" ("Sins of Idealism"). The girl, perceived in the family as an unwanted burden, tries to adapt to the psychological abuse she receives, but she is the object of frequent quarrels and grows sad and depressed ("Beautiful Emptiness"). She searches for quietness and strength in her inner fantasy world, and friendship and love on the internet, becoming ever more detached from the real world and eccentric in the eyes of her schoolmates and parents ("Eccentric", "Digital Deceit", "Through Square Eyes"). The line of pain that connects the child to her parents appears indestructible and the situation gets worse when the father thinks of leaving ("Blind Pain", "Two Sides"). The intervention of the girl's grandmother reveals that the father was himself a neglected child and a victim of his family ("Victim of Choices"). The father's anger is a reaction to his abuse as a child and this realization seems to soften the girl's pain, bringing her out of her defensive shell ("Reflections"). In conclusion, the grown-up daughter, now a mother herself, faces the same dilemmas of her parents and is bound to repeat her parents' mistakes, closing the invisible circle that endures from one generation to another ("Life's Vortex").
Production
Sander Gommans started the composition of the basic melodies for Invisible Circles at the beginning of 2003 in his home studio in ReuverReuver
Reuver is a village in the Dutch province of Limburg. It is located in the municipality of Beesel, about 10 km south of the city of Venlo.-References:...
, working at the same time on new songs for the EP Exordium. This part of the creative process had been shared with Mark Jansen for the previous albums and it would be shared with keyboard player Joost van den Broek
Joost van den Broek
Joost van den Broek was a keyboardist in the metal band After Forever. On the album After Forever, Joost had the opportunity to collaborate on the composition and production of the album alongside other band members. Van den Broek will appear on the Sinbreed album When Worlds Collide...
for the following ones. Gommans wrote the songs for the new album with the precise idea of pushing the music of the band closer to progressive metal
Progressive metal
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
, reducing the gothic atmospheres of the previous releases to a minimum and adopting as many different musical styles as he felt necessary to the convey the message of the songs. Meanwhile, his fiancée Floor Jansen was writing the lyrics and shaping the plot for the concept album.
The band reunited at Excess Studios in Rotterdam
Rotterdam
Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...
in July 2003, a few weeks after recording Exordium, to arrange the new songs and to record the instrumental tracks, under supervision of producer Hans Pieters and sound engineer Dennis Leidelmeijer. Every member of the band contributed to the music, which is credited for the most part to all six musicians. When the instrumental tracks were ready, the band moved in August 2003 to Gate Studio in Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg
Wolfsburg is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located on the River Aller northeast of Braunschweig , and is mainly notable as the headquarters of Volkswagen AG...
, Germany, where all solo vocal parts were arranged by the band, under supervision of American singer and producer Amanda Somerville
Amanda Somerville
Amanda Somerville is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach.- Personal life :Somerville was born in Flushing, Michigan, and attended Flushing Senior High School and the University of Michigan in Flint, Michigan...
. She also contributed, along with Jay Lansford, the recited parts that connect the songs to each other and explain parts of the plot. The solo vocals of Jansen, Gommans and Bas Maas were recorded separately by producers Sascha Paeth
Sascha Paeth
Sascha Paeth is a German guitarist, bassist, musical producer, and mixer known for working with heavy metal bands such as Avantasia, Edguy, Angra, Shaaman, Rhapsody of Fire, Kamelot, After Forever, Epica, et al...
and Michael “Miro” Rodenberg
Michael Rodenberg
Michael Rodenberg, nickname Miro, is a German keyboardist and musical producer known for working with power metal bands such as Angra, Shaaman, Rhapsody of Fire, Kamelot, Heavens Gate, et al...
. Female soprano vocals, grunts and clean male vocals represent in the songs different feelings and behaviours of the characters. The final stage of the recording process was executed at Arts Music Recording studio in Rhoon
Rhoon
thumb|200px|Castle Rhoonthumb|200pxRhoon is a village that borders the municipality of the city of Rotterdam, South Holland, the Netherlands.According to its history it was established in 1199 and was ruled by the lords of Duiveland...
from 20 to 24 October 2003, under supervision of Peter Arts. The orchestra and choir parts were arranged there by Cees’ Kieboom, who also contributed some additional keyboards to smooth the transition between the different instrumental parts. The final mixing of all the parts was executed by Sascha Paeth at The Pathway Studio in Wolfsburg, Germany in November and December 2003, except the instrumental introduction "Childhood in Minor" mixed by Sander Gommans. The album was mastered at Sound Factory by Peter van 't Riet for a release in early 2004.
Invisible Circles was released by Trasmission Records on 25 March 2004. "Digital Deceit
Digital Deceit
Digital Deceit is a single by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever, released in 2004. It is the only single extracted from their third full-length album Invisible Circles.-Track listing:#"Digital Deceit " - 4:07...
" was the only single issued from the album and released on 20 May 2004. A high tech video clip was produced for the song by D'iMages, the same company that had done the video clip for the 2003 single "My Choice
My Choice/The Evil That Men Do
My Choice/The Evil That Men Do is a 2003 single by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. It is taken from their EP Exordium and was the band's first single after the departure of co-founder Mark Jansen.-Track listing:...
", extracted from Exordium. The video was aired on Dutch MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
and on local musical TV stations.
Packaging
The artwork for the album was created by German designer Carsten Drescher and his graphics company Media Logistics. Drescher was responsible for the After Forever logo and the cover concepts of every After Forever album and single since then. The girl he photographed is in fact his daughter Aimee Drescher, who also appeared in the video clip for the song "Digital Diceit". He inserted the photos in a dark urban landscape tinted blue, completing the front cover artwork with the digital overlay of circles in the water to evoke the title of the album. The same circles were extensively used in the CD booklet and in every other artwork related to the album. Together with the dominant blue colour the circles were also present in the live show scenography.The photos of the band were taken by Dutch photographer Angelique van Woerkom in November 2003 and each member dressed in a tight black and blue suit with a lightning motif, the same colors of the CD sleeve. The same suits were used for the video clip of the single "Digital Deceit" and sometimes appeared in live shows during the following tour.
Tour
The Invisible Circles tour started in February 2004, just before the album release, in Mexico, home of the independent label Raw Metal Records, which distributed After Forever albums for all the American continent. An intensive European tour followed, touching the Netherlands, Germany and France.Two months after the release of the album, keyboard player Lando van Gils left the band on amicable terms. He played his last gig with the band at The Bosuil, Weert
Weert
Weert is a municipality and city in the southeastern Netherlands. As of 2010, Weert had a population of 48,405. It lies on the Eindhoven–Maastricht railway line, and is also astride the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal.- Population centres :* Altweerterheide...
, on 14 May 2004. He was replaced by keyboard player Joost van der Broek, coming from the Dutch progressive rock band Sun Caged
Sun Caged
Sun Caged is a progressive metal band originating in The Netherlands. Sun Caged was formed by ex-Lemur Voice guitarist Marcel Coenen and drummer Dennis Leeflang in the spring of 1999. Taking influences from artists in the metal genre such as Dream Theater, and even Iron Maiden, Sun Caged has a...
, who completed the rest of the tour. Van den Broek had played with Floor Jansen during the Star One tour of 2002, where he also met Gommans. The tour brought the band to play at the important Graspop
Graspop Metal Meeting
Graspop Metal Meeting is an annual metal festival in Dessel, Belgium that has taken place each year since 1996. Despite the small size of the festival grounds the festival draws a large number of international spectators, with a total of 142,000 visitors in the course of the 2011 edition...
, Pinkpop and Dynamo
Dynamo Open Air
Dynamo Open Air was a festival in the Netherlands held every year since 1986, until 2005. Originally held to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Dynamo rock club in Eindhoven, it has grown exponentially since then, and from a 5,000-person attendance in the Dynamo parking lot, it had grown to...
festivals in Belgium and the Netherlands. The Pinkpop Festival performance on 30 May 2004, was televised for a Dutch TV station. The first leg of the tour culminated with the performance at the Wacken Open Air
Wacken Open Air
Wacken Open Air is a summer open air heavy metal music festival. It takes place annually in the small town of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany...
festival, on 7 August 2004.
New dates of the tour were added at the end of the year, but some shows were cancelled when drummer André Borgman was admitted to a hospital and diagnosed with lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
at an initial stage. The official site of the band reported the news of Borgman’s illness and confirmed some shows, with Ayreon, Star One and Gorefest drummer Ed Warby
Ed Warby
Edward R. Warby was born and raised in Rotterdam and is best known as the drummer for Gorefest and Ayreon.He also appeared in the band Agressor in 1982 and joined the Eindhoven-based prog-outfit Elegy in 1987...
standing-in for Borgman.
The band spent the first half of 2005 concentrating on the material for the new album Remagine
Remagine
Remagine is the fourth album released by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever. It was released on September 8, 2005 by Transmission Records and followed the 2004 concept album Invisible Circles. This album is available in two versions, an SACD with three bonus songs and as a ‘Special Edition’...
, while Borgman received intensive treatment to cure his cancer. Luckily, the cures were successful and Borgman was back behind his drum kit for the final leg of the Invisible Circles tour in South America in August 2005.
Critical and commercial reception
After the almost unanimous praise received by the album Decipher and the perplexities raised by the new musical direction of the EP Exordium, there were great expectations for the new album by fans and specialized press alike. The complexity of the music and concept of Invisible Circles produced mixed reviews, ranging from highest praise to complete failure, even in the same publication. The bold move of making a concept album about such a controversial matter was generally appreciated but, Eduardo Rivadavia said in his Allmusic review, this could be a "slightly overambitious creation". The Maximum Metal reviewer states that "concept albums are always hard to pull off and not many bands can do it well" and "here is another failed attempt".It was the general opinion of most reviewers that Floor Jansen's lead vocals are at her best and "her performance here is powerful, dramatic and very impressive overall, no matter how she chooses to sing". However, her lyrics were sometimes considered a weak point of the album, despite the fact that the band "placed as much emphasis" on them "as they did on the music". Sam Grant of Sonic Cathedral Webzine considered them "trite" and "disappointing". In particular, the spoken dialogue by Somerville and Lansford was generally considered badly acted and detrimental to the music which, on the contrary, was generally considered the strong point of the album. The change of musical direction, with the introduction of progressive metal elements, and the many variations of style adopted in the songs were generally praised, to the point that a Metal Storm
Metal Storm (webzine)
Metal Storm is a webzine specializing in various forms of heavy metal music. It is based in Tallinn, Estonia but caters to an international audience, symbolically recognized by the acquisition of an EU domain in 2008...
reviewer compares After Forever to "Symphony X
Symphony X
Symphony X is an American progressive metal band from Middletown, New Jersey.Founded in 1994 by guitarist Michael Romeo, their albums The Divine Wings of Tragedy and V: The New Mythology Suite have given the band considerable attention within the progressive metal community...
with Floor Jansen on vocals". Only a few reviewers remained nostalgic of the gothic and symphonic sound of Decipher and denounced a "lack of direction" and "too much confusion" in the music of the album.
The album sold enough in the Benelux
Benelux
The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe comprising three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries are located in northwestern Europe between France and Germany...
to remain in the Dutch Mega Album Top 100
MegaCharts
MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top...
chart for eleven weeks and in the Belgian Ultratop 50
Ultratop 50
Ultratop 50 singles, often just Ultratop 50, is the weekly chart of fifty best-selling singles in Flanders, Belgium, and is produced and published by the Ultratop organization. The chart has existed since March 31, 1995...
Albums chart for two.
It reached the #24 position in the Netherlands and position #74 in Belgium. The single "Digital Deceit" reached the #41 position in the Single Top 100 chart in the Netherlands.
Track listing
All music by After Forever, except "Childhood in Minor" by S. Gommans and "Eccentric" by L. van Gils and F. Jansen. All lyrics by F. Jansen- "Childhood in Minor" (Instrumental) – 1:20
- "Beautiful Emptiness" – 5:25
- "Between Love and Fire" – 4:56
- "Sins of Idealism" – 5:22
- "Eccentric" – 4:10
- "Digital DeceitDigital DeceitDigital Deceit is a single by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever, released in 2004. It is the only single extracted from their third full-length album Invisible Circles.-Track listing:#"Digital Deceit " - 4:07...
" – 5:38 - "Through Square Eyes" – 6:23
- "Blind Pain" – 6:47
- "Two Sides" – 4:34
- "Victim of Choices" – 3:21
- "Reflections" – 5:11
- "Life's Vortex" – 5:53
Personnel
Band members- Floor JansenFloor JansenFloor Jansen is a Dutch singer, who was the lead singer of the symphonic metal band After Forever which disbanded in 2009, and is the current singer for ReVamp.-After Forever:...
- female soprano vocals - Sander GommansSander GommansSander Gommans is a Dutch musician. He founded the symphonic metal band Apocalypse with Mark Jansen in 1995, which later changed its name to After Forever. He played guitar and did the grunting parts in the band...
- guitar, grunts - Bas Maas - guitar, clean male vocals
- Lando van Gils - keyboards
- Luuk van Gerven - bass guitar
- André Borgman - drums
Production
- Hans Pieters - producer, engineer
- Dennis Leidelmeijer - engineer
- Sascha PaethSascha PaethSascha Paeth is a German guitarist, bassist, musical producer, and mixer known for working with heavy metal bands such as Avantasia, Edguy, Angra, Shaaman, Rhapsody of Fire, Kamelot, After Forever, Epica, et al...
- vocal producer, mixing - MiroMichael RodenbergMichael Rodenberg, nickname Miro, is a German keyboardist and musical producer known for working with power metal bands such as Angra, Shaaman, Rhapsody of Fire, Kamelot, Heavens Gate, et al...
- vocal producer, engineer - Hans van Vuuren - executive producer
- Peter van 't Riet - mastering
Additional musicians
- Cees' Kieboom - piano, keyboards, strings and choir arrangements
- Jeanne Biessen - violin
- Herman van Haaren - violin
- Yvonne van de Pol - viola
- Carla Schrijner - violoncello
- Sartje van Camp - violoncello
- Hans Cassa - choral bass vocals
- Caspar de Jonge - choral tenor vocals
- Martine de Jager - choral alto vocals
- Ellen Bakker - choral soprano vocals
- Amanda SomervilleAmanda SomervilleAmanda Somerville is an American singer-songwriter and vocal coach.- Personal life :Somerville was born in Flushing, Michigan, and attended Flushing Senior High School and the University of Michigan in Flint, Michigan...
- reciting voice, vocal coach - Jay Lansford - reciting voice