Epica – The Holographic Principle
“The Holographic Principle” marks Epica’s eight studioalbum to date, following up the success of “The Quantum Enigma”. The hype was real, at least for me personally for this album already when songs as “Universal Death Squad” and “Edge of the Blade” made their premiere, so, well, you guys already know how happy I was when it finally arrived on my doorstep, and seriously, listening to this album was pure bliss.
While the album is still very Epica the way we know them, I don’t think I’ve ever heard them experiment as much with different elements the way they have on this album. It starts already in the opening song, “Edge of the Blade” with interesting melodic patterns, creating and interesting conflict in the song, moving on to the second, “A Phantasmic Parade” that sounds like nothing I ever heard from them before. And this is something that continues throughout the album – making it extremely interesting, as you never know what to expect of the next song, not only because of the variety of them, but also because of the way they are built – it’s a perfect mixture of heavy elements, pouring out in bombastic vocals or enchanting melodies with the perfect amount of “accessories” as my AE teacher would call it, making every single minute of this album interesting.
The album goes from being extremely heavy at times, to then reach to Disney kind of levels in their songs, at one point even ending up in a song oriental elements sending my thoughts back to an old computergame called “Atlantis”, and not to mention, probably one of my favorite songs, if not the one on the album – “Beyond the Matrix”. With a feeling of a march to war with bombastic vocals and uplifting melody lines, this song is just beyond me. This song in particular makes me extremely happy. They really nailed it with this one.
The lyricwork is also remarkable. We already know that Epica’s been good with lyrics, but there’s something about this album that just makes it pop. Perhaps it’s the concept of it, about what is real, what is not real that challenge us into thinking outside the box. Some of the tracks reaches an existential questions like “The Cosmic Algorithm” and I’ve found myself losing myself in my thoughts when I’ve paid too much attention to the lyrics. Well done, Epica!
Well, with all of this being said, I guess we can easily say that I was sure as hell not disappointed with this, and now I can’t wait for the tour next year. It can’t come sooner.
// Sara
Sara Hammerzmith 
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