Design Your Universe

Following a slight delay, I finally got my mitts on the new Epica album, Design Your Universe this week.

It doesn’t feel like two years since The Divine Conspiracy. I really liked The Divine Conspiracy, it was a “big” album, but I think that Design Your Universe has certainly managed to one up its predecessor in terms of scope. DYU sounds massive. It does take a few listens to get into it though and some of the songs are more distinctive than others.

The stand outs for me, at the moment, are “Our Destiny” and “Tides of Time”, both of which sound majestic. “Burn to a Cinder” is also an honourable mention. It’s also great to hear Sonata Arctica’s Tony Kakko making an appearance on “White Waters”. The title track has, rather oddly, passed me by but I think that a few more listens are needed to fully appreciate it. Seeing as I’ve found that all of the Epica albums need to be listened to a fair few times before all their merits are made apparent, I haven’t found this strange.

Simone’s voice sounds great on this album; she has developed as a singer since TDC. Her voice soars on “Tides of Time”. This album sounds like a lot of time, thought and effort has gone into it, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a starting point if you’ve never listened to Epica before.

Special mention should go to “Kingdom of Heaven”, the album’s “big” track. Split into five parts and clocking in at thirteen minutes thirty five seconds, it takes longer to listen to this song than it takes me to drive to work.

Anyway, this album is definitely worth a listen, so pick up a copy or head over to Spotify to listen to it.