EPICA's SIMONE SIMONS Completes Recording Vocals For New Album

EPICA's Simone Simons has completed laying down vocals for the band's next LP.

On Thursday, Simone took to her Twitter to write: "Yesterday I finished my vocal recordings for the new @Epica Album. Our Earth plays a vital part on the new album. Who's excited?!"

Last month, EPICA guitarist/vocalist Mark Jansen told FaceCulture that the recording process for the band's upcoming disc has been affected by the novel coronavirus pandemic that is racing around the world and stalling economies. Asked if the coronavirus crisis will likely result in the new EPICA album being delayed, Mark said: "It could. We still have to see what's gonna happen. I have the feeling that Nuclear Blast is anyway putting a lot of releases already later, so there's a big chance it will affect the release date of the album, unfortunately, yes… I leave that up to our manager to talk to Nuclear Blast and see what the possibilities are. I have no idea. I hope that if there's a delay, the delay will be as small as possible. But it depends also on how long this corona situation is gonna take. If this goes on for months and months, then it will not make sense to release an album in September if by then it's still not solved. Of course, health is the most important thing in life. So, we will see how it will develop, and then we will make a decision also based on that."

On the topic of the musical direction of the new EPICA material, Mark said: "Some fans asked me the same question, so I had already some time to think about it. And if I would have to say in what direction, I would say it's like in between 'Design Your Universe' [2009] and 'The Quantum Enigma' [2014] — that kind of direction. Of course, we always try also to integrate some new stuff, and we try to aim for some really catchy choruses. When you have 'Beyond The Matrix' and 'Cry For The Moon', people really love to hear these songs on festivals, for example, so we tried to write a bit in that direction but also without losing the heaviness."

Most of the recording sessions for EPICA's new album took place at Sandlane Recording Facilities in Rijen, Netherlands.

In support of the new album, EPICA is scheduled to hit the road in Europe during the "Epic Apocalypse" co-headline tour with APOCALYPTICA.

Last fall, EPICA celebrated the 10th anniversary of its milestone album "Design Your Universe". To mark this special occasion, EPICA re-released this fan-favorite LP as a "gold edition" in October through Nuclear Blast.

November 2019 saw the release of "The Essence Of Epica", a lavishly designed and fully illustrated, high-quality hardback which tells the story of EPICA in bandmembers' own words.