Balls of fire, ball gowns, cutting guitars, angelic singing… symphonic metalis the extravagant, brakeless sister of heavy metal. Sits her brother lookingout the window on a birthday, sulkingly waiting for grandpa and grandma toleave; she is standing on the table singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in itsentirety. It’s a subgenre where ‘over-the-top’, ‘bombastic’ and ‘nerdy’ arenot dirty words, but compliments. The combination of hard metal with cleansingers can fill the largest venues. This weekend there are no less than fourevenings filled with them in the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam: twice Nightwish, andtwice Within Temptation. And then later in January you can also go to Epicaand Apocalyptica in the Afas Live. What exactly is it, what’s great about itand why is it so popular?
Symphonic metal is simply metal, so heavy rock music, with elements fromclassical music. Strings, horns, choral vocals and other additions that arenot very common in metal are there for a lush or bombastic effect. Sometimesfrom a keyboard, sometimes with a whole orchestra. The best bands in the genrehave a very good singer, who sometimes sings almost operatic, often (butcertainly not always) next to a roaring singer, for contrast. The textsregularly come straight from the fantasy literature or science fiction world.That helps accessibility. Incidentally, it sometimes goes further behind thetexts. For example, Epica wrote the song ‘Feint’ in response to the murder ofPim Fortuyn.
Musically, the barrier to entry is also low. Unlike much other heavy music,symphonic metal is hardly aggressive, the lyrics are fairly bloodshed andthere is a pleasant lack of testosterone – or at least that is somewhatbalanced by the female vocals and the catchy melodies.
Symphonic metal attracts a wide audience: at concerts of these kinds of bandsyou see many women and people of all ages. Metal is no longer the man’s sportit once was, and symphonic metal is partly responsible for that.
Also read an interview with Floor Jansen from Nightwish: ‘ The Netherlandsis just a shitty country in terms of music’
Fairytale metal
“I found the great attraction that there was more female vocals than in othermetal,” says Charlotte Wessels, until recently the singer of the symphonicmetal band Delain and now pursuing a solo career. “Not because I wouldn’t feelwelcome as a girl in the metal scene, but because as a metal lover who lovesto sing, I finally found music with vocals in my register.”
It is also sometimes referred to as fairytale metal or even Eftelingmetal, dueto the lyrical tendency towards fantasy themes combined with the fairytalevocals and, at times, the elements of folk music. A bit condescending, that’sfor sure, especially in the early days. Sharon den Adel, the singer of WithinTemptation, recently said in NRC that they embraced those terms: “If somethingis extreme, and for many people we were quite extreme, then it is easy tocaricature it. That also means that you have the attention.”
It kind of started with Therion, a Swedish band that combined blissful strings(from a keyboard) and reverberating choirs (really) with their death roar andraging guitars on the album in 1996 Theli. But in the meantime things werealready brewing in Waddinxveen, where former band members of the death metalband The Circle were working on a cassette tape in a new formation with asinger like Within Temptation: Enter. The album hit the metal scene like abomb in 1997. And then on second album Mother Earth the death rattle ofRobert Westerholt disappeared and Sharon den Adel got all the focus, the bandslowly broke through to a large audience.
“Promoters and other labels made a bit of a joke about it in the early days,”says Anthony van den Berg, who released the early albums of Within Temptation,Trail of Tears and Orphanage with his record label DSFA, among others. “Butfans, and then female fans in the first instance, went along with it en masse.It was really something new, and even though the radio didn’t play it, I knew:if the general public hears this, the roof will go off. And it did, it workedwith ‘Ice Queen’, Within Temptation’s first hit.”
Within Temptation with singer Sharon den Adel during a concert at the AFASLive in Amsterdam in 2018.
Andreas Terlaak’s photo
Singer Sharon den Adel recently wrote about this in this newspaper: “What wedid before that was almost a gimmick, at least it felt that way. It was donetoo many times.”
But it wasn’t done that often. The symphonic elements, the fantasy atmosphere,that mix of gothic and doom, the ripping guitars with heavenly vocals, thatwas really quite new. But before them there was a band that had popularizedsome of those ingredients: The Gathering had already made two albums full ofdragging death metal when the very young singer Anneke van Giersbergen walkedinto the rehearsal room. On the first album with her, Mandylion her voiceworked naturally on the heavy guitar music and became one of the absoluteclassics and an important source of inspiration.
All those Dutch people, what about that? “The magic word is Anneke,” saysArjen Lucassen, the man behind Ayreon and Star One, who has worked with dozensof singers from the symphonic world over the years. “Anneke van Giersbergenwas the first and immediately the best to do it with The Gathering: combiningthat beautiful vibrato with nail-heavy metal. I still remember when I firstheard it, holy shit, I was an instant fan. I think that also applies to manyother well-known Dutch singers, they must have looked at her and thought: Iwant that too.
In 2017, the Dutch pop music sector broke through the 200 million mark inforeign income for the first time: money that was earned from rights,recordings and performances. Three-quarters of that was due to dance and alittle bit to André Rieu, but symphonic metal is also a successful exportproduct. Bands like Epica and Within Temptation play in sports stadiums andarenas all over the world, especially in South and Central America, but theyalso have a lot of fans in Germany and Japan. Epica already received the BumaRocks Export award in 2015 for their foreign successes.
Brabant singer Floor Jansen sings in the Finnish band Nightwish (and lives inSweden, to make it easy), but received the prestigious Pop Prize in 2019 forher contribution to Dutch pop music at home and abroad.
“It seems a somewhat hidden scene, because the music press in the Netherlandsis less inclined to write about it,” says Anneke van Giersbergen, “but itdraws full houses all over the world. I notice that Dutch bands in this genrequickly approach it professionally and I also think that the fact that youcome from the Netherlands ensures that there is immediate attention in theinternational press, a bit comparable to Dutch DJs, or a grunge band fromSeattle . And there are just a number of very good and talented female singersin the Netherlands, who also choose a career in heavy music.”
Also read an interview with Anneke van Giersbergen: Getting out of TheGathering was the hardest thing I ‘ve ever done
Cheesy
According to Johan van Stratum, team leader of the only metal training in theworld, the Metal Factory in Eindhoven, and bass player in the bands Stream ofPassion, Ayreon and Blind Guardian, it has to do with the business climate,but also with quality and technology. “A band like Epica is a seasoned metalmachine, very high in terms of playing, production and technical. This alsoapplies to the often female vocalists. Not for nothing that Floor brought thewhole of the Netherlands to its knees Dear Singers.”
Isn’t it a little cheesy , and geeky? “Naturally! I am the chief nerd”, saysArjen Lucassen with a laugh. “Symphonic metal is absolutely nerdy, it’s pureescapism and that’s a dirty word for a lot of people. I also have that withAyreon when I approach some guest musicians. Steven Wilson from PorcupineTree, for example, when I say it will be a science fiction album, heimmediately drops out. I never get it very well: when there is a big Star Warsmovie everyone flies to the cinema, but when it’s in music it’s the same_cheesy_.” But, yes, he admits: there is a lot of cheesiness in between. “Themajority even, it often goes too far for me. But if it’s done really well,then it’s really great. The really good songs that have that little bit extrawhen it comes to melody and use of chords, you hear that in bands likeNightwish and Within Temptation and there aren’t many of them.”
Still, Lucassen, always looking for new blood, also has the name of new talentready: „I can hear it from Blackbriar, who have just signed a contract withNuclear Blast. That is a new tire that also has that little bit extra.”
Nightwish plays 27 and 28/11 in the Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam. Within Temptation and Evanescence play 29 and 30/11 in the Ziggo Dome. Epica and Apocalyptica play 27/1 in the Afas Live, Amsterdam.