''Design Your Universe'' is the fourth studio album by Dutch symphonic metal band Epica, released on 16 October 2009. It was the first album to feature officially new band members Isaac Delahaye on guitar and Ariën van Weesenbeek on drums. A Gold Edition re-release of the album was released on 4 October 2019.

Overview

Pre-release and production

The band entered Gate Studio in Wolfsburg,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

on 2 March 2009 to start recording the album with usual collaborators Sascha Paeth, Amanda Somerville and Michael 'Miro' Rodenberg. The band's previous album, '' The Divine Conspiracy'', was dealing with the idea that God created many religions and that it was to man to understand that they are all the same, and this album will be dealing with the power of thoughts and imaginations, as Mark Jansen stated: Three songs of this album continue the A New Age Dawns saga, which started on the album '' Consign to Oblivion'' of 2005, and would later be continued in '' Aspiral'' from 2025. The sixth track on the album, and the fifth part of the saga, started the ''Kingdom of Heaven'' series, with parts two and three featuring on '' The Quantum Enigma'' and ''

Omega Omega (, ; uppercase Ω, lowercase ω; Ancient Greek ὦ, later ὦ μέγα, Modern Greek ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter in the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numerals, Greek numeric system/isopsephy (gematria), it has a value ...

'' respectively.

Sonata Arctica Sonata Arctica is a Finnish power metal band from the town of Kemi, Finland. Created as a hard rock band named Tricky Beans, they later changed to Tricky Means and finally to Sonata Arctica, when they shifted to power metal. The current lineup c ...

frontman Tony Kakko announced in an interview with La Grosse Radio.com that he would duet with Simone Simons on the album. His vocals for the song "White Waters" were recorded in Finland and later mixed with the other sound tracks. The song "Resign to Surrender" was published on the MySpace website of the record label

Nuclear Blast Nuclear Blast Records is a German record label with subsidiary, subsidiaries located in Germany, the United States and Brazil. It was founded in 1987 by Markus Staiger in Donzdorf. Originally releasing hardcore punk records, the label moved on ...

on 23 September 2009. and the video for "Unleashed" premiered on the band's MySpace site on 25 September 2009. The bonus track "Incentive" is one of the very few Epica songs to not feature Simone Simons in any capacity.

Reception

Reception has been positive from both critics and fans. The album debuted at No. 8 in the Dutch charts, being the highest position an Epica album had reached until that moment. The album remained on the chart for five weeks, and re-entered in No. 94 for one week due to the band's performance at the 2010 Pinkpop Festival.

Design Your Universe World Tour

After the release of Design Your Universe, Epica set out on a World Tour to support the album. They did a CD release party at The Paradiso in Amsterdam. They performed at some summer festival concerts in the summer of 2010 and returned to the United States and Canada in late fall 2010. Several dates in Europe, specially in the Netherlands, were sold out. The band also did a South American Tour, performing in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

. They played also in many important rock and metal festivals in Europe, such as

Wacken Open Air Wacken Open Air (, abbreviated as W:O:A) is a Heavy metal music, heavy metal music festival, held annually since 1990 on the first weekend of August in the village of Wacken, Schleswig-Holstein, Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Almost all ...

, Pinkpop and Masters of Rock, in front of very large audiences.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits for ''Design Your Universe'' adapted from liner notes.(2009). "''Design Your Universe'' liner notes". In ''Design Your Universe'' D booklet Nuclear Blast. Epica * Simone Simons – lead vocals, photography * Mark Jansen –

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

, grunts, screams, orchestral arrangements, mixing * Isaac Delahaye –

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

, engineering *Yves Huts –

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

, engineering, orchestral arrangements on "Deconstruct" *Coen Janssen –

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, orchestral, choir arrangements, choir vocals *Ariën van Weesenbeek –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, grunts, spoken word Additional personnel * Tony Kakko – clean male vocals on "White Waters" * Amanda Somerville – soprano vocals on "Unleashed (Duet Version)", backing vocals, vocals production, engineering, vocal coaching, lyrical editing, choir vocals *Brian Reese – orchestral arrangements (on "Tides of Time") Epica Choir *Bridget Fogle, Cloudy Yang, Linda Janssen-van Summeren, Melvin Edmondsen, Previn Moore Production * Gjalt Lucassen – Latin translation * Jaap Toorenaar – Latin translation * Sascha Paeth – producer, engineering, mixing, backing vocals *Simon Oberender – engineering, editing, choir vocals *Olaf Reitmeier – engineering, editing, choir vocals *Joost van den Broek – engineering * Miro Rodenberg – mastering, orchestral arrangements *Stefan Heilemann – artwork, cover art, art direction, design, photography

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2009 albums Epica (band) albums Nuclear Blast albums