The best of Prog rock

Sunday, August 21, 2011

AFTER FOREVER - A BAND FROM HOLLAND

                                                                                           (Floor Jansen)

After Forever was a Dutch symphonic metal band with strong progressive metal influences, relied on the use of both soprano vocals and death grunts. In February 2009 it was announced that they had disbanded.

After Forever was originally assembled in 1995 under the name Apocalypse, playing music most oriented towards death metal. With the joining of vocalist Floor Jansen in 1997, their style shifted slightly to a more symphonic metal sound in order to give emphasis to her voice. Their line-up at this point comprised Floor Jansen, Mark Jansen, Sander Gommans, Luuk van Gerven, Jack Driessen and Joep Beckers.
In 1999 the band begun composing songs of their own and recorded two demos - entitled Ephemeral and Wings Of Illusion - which eventually drew the attention of the Transmission Records label, with whom the band signed a contract.

Their debut album Prison Of Desire was recorded in 2000, featuring the guest appearance of Sharon den Adel. The album obtained impressive success in Europe. In the end of that year, drummer Andr? Borgman and keyboardist Lando van Gils joined the band, replacing Joep Beckers and Jack Driessen.
                                                                                       (After Forever)

In 2001, the album Decipher was released. Floor Jansen was invited to guest sing in Ayreon, one of Arjen Anthony Lucassen's projects. In 2002 Mark Jansen was fired from After Forever and subsequently assembled the band Epica, being replaced by Bas Maas. In 2003, After Forever released the EP and DVD Exordium.

In 2004, the concept album Invisible Circles was released. In this album, After Forever introduced progressive metal elements to their music. The album reached 26th place in the Dutch Top 100 musical chart. Lando van Gils also left the band and was replaced by Joost van den Broek in the same year.
In early September 2005, the band released their fourth album Remagine This album is available in two versions, an SACD (super audio compact disc) with three bonus songs and as a special edition with a DVD. The DVD contains a photo gallery and a 'making of' documentary.

On March 3, 2006, the band left the Transmission Records label, due to the scarce promotion that the label was providing. By October of the same year After Forever had signed to Nuclear Blast Records.
In the end of 2006 the band recorded their 1st album on the Nuclear Blast label, self titled After Forever, it features guest appearances from Annihilator guitarist Jeff Waters and Doro Pesch. Videos of the recording sessions are available for download on the band website. The album was released in April 23, 2007.

In January 2008, After Forever announced on their website that the band would be taking a break of at least a year. In an interview with Ragnar radio, Floor said the band would get together early 2009 to discuss After Forever's future. On February 5th 2009 , After Forever announced that they decided to quit. They realized that they did not feel the energy towards the band anymore. 

Nowadays, Floor Jansen is the vocalist of a new band called ReVamp.
Take a look at these two videos (I hope you like them): 


Adapted from www.lyricsfreak.com by Milton França



                                                                                                      

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

THREE EXPRESSIONS WITH 'DOG'

1.  To be in the dog house - means that someone is angry about something you did (or didn't do).
2.  The hair of the dog (that bit you) - an alcoholic drink taken to make you feel better after drinking too much alcohol the night before
3.  To make a dog's dinner of something - to make a real mess of something, to do something badly.

People from different parts of the world gave examples of these three expressions. Take a look and try to find spelling or/and grammar mistakes in some of them:

Viviane, France
My sister was 2 hours late to the lunch at my parent's house last Sunday. Now she's in the dog house with then. She told them it was because she had went out on saturday and drank too much. She woke up very late on Sunday and she needed the hair of the dog to recover from her hangover. Sometimes she makes a dog's dinner of her life.
Mehmet Yildiz, Gaziantep, Turkey
looking back on the past,I really had been in the dog house for I was extremely hungover and had the hair of the dog and womited all over the carpets on the ground in a newly-gotten friend's house.I mean it was a nice beginning for making a new friend.Because I made dog dinners of everything.
Gurg, Iceland
hello.. once I dropt a glas on the floor: and week later I dropt a disk on the floor then I was in the dogs house!
Hiroki, Japan
We have some proverbs about alcohol all over the world. One of famous proverbs makes us encourage to drink too much."Good wine makes good blood"We exactly know we can use alcohol as medicines and we had better to have the hair of the dog when we want to drink.But actually I sometime drink too much without any sickness.Anyway I like to drink but I really don't like to go somewhere as I'm in the dog house if I miss any transports because I have too much drinking.
Eln Hulda, Iceland
Hello... Once I was playing in my garden with my friend and we were playing football and I was going to runto the ball and kick it wery wery hard but my friend camed runing to me an instead to kick the ball I kicked her leg and it broke and then I was in the dog house and I was so sorry that I kicked here I started to drink and I drank a lot of alcahole and the day after I wanted the hairof the dog...
Svanur, Iceland
Hello... once I was playing foodball and my friend Hilmar was a idiot and took ball of me. I started to kick him and he started to crying and I walked home an then I was in the dog house
Vidyasekaran, India
Our teacher was in the dog house when One of my friend proved him wrong in the class room. This incident occured when we were studying our Engineering final year course. The teacher couldnot tolerate this and had too much of alcohol and the next day he vomited in his car and made a dogs dinner of something a hair of a dog would have probably helped avoid this incident.
Bb, Mongolia
its very embarrasing to tell about this story to the public, 7 months ago, that was previous day of the examination, i thought i was ready to pass the exam easily and with my some friends i drank several bottle of beers, subseqeuntly i woked up in my friends house without any memory, and then i realized that i played hookey for my exam, finally that semester i was in the dog house, pssss
Dolphin,China
Sarah never get drunk, so she never need the hair of the dog. However, she made a dogs dinner of the final exam last week. That's because she went to the wrong place. She blamed the dog days of summer. And I only hope that she wouldn't be in the dog house when her father found it out.
Ana Paula, Brazil
I'm in the dog house now. I overslept last night and lost my friend's party. Anyway, I tried to talk to her today, and explain what had happened, but she didn't want to hear me and I think I should wait more to give the reason why I miss her party. I've just made a dog?s dinner of everthing!
Tatiana, Russia
Mum asked me to iron dad's shirt for an urgent appointment and I made a dog's dinner out of it, I ended up in the dog house for burning it a bit. After that I decided to relax a bit and woke up with a terrible hangover, I guess the best remedy would have been the hair of the dog
Neelam, Nepal
I remember those day of my schools, when i used to draw my teachers's cartoon on my desk. My friends used to like it but one day one of my teacher catched me while making his funny picture on my copy. Then I was in the dog house on my school life.
Rosa, Italy
Three weeks ago I went home in the South of Italy for my Summer vacation and because of the traffic on the roads I reached home with 4 hours of delay... and my trip lasted 15 hours! So the traffic makes a dogs dinner of my trip towards Summer holidays...
Hung Hung, Taiwan
Last week ,I thought,I like to be in thedog house because I forgot the time to meet my friends at coffee shope so thatmade them to wait for me for a long time.later,they phoned me to go there to meet them ,when I went to there ,I sawmy friends face are not good that day ,after the meeting finished , I also feltbad for a while ,I think ,next time ,Ido not do again.
Felipe Cardemil, Chile
I was in a concert last night, It was awesome, after that meand my friendswent to a bar, we were drinking beerand listening to rock and roll all night. The morning after I woke up terrible thirsty and I said "I need the hair of the dog urgently"
Betzabe, Chile
Mmm, yes..."the hair of the dog" hahaha, I remember something about my uncle. When my uncle was 17 years old, was the best student of the high school, but once he was to a party the night before 18th september's parade(in chile). So, the next day he needed the hair of the dog, and the most terrible was that he wanted dissapear in that moment, and suddenly a teacher said him that he had to stay in front of all the students carring the flag. It Really was terrible for him, because he almost couldn't walk and he had to walk in front of the mayor. It was very embarrasing for him, and the next day he was in the dog house. Then the headmaster suspended him for many days. hahaha for it was funny but for him it was terrible, hahaha.
Karen, Chile.
Last week I forgot something very important!!!...I forgot my father`s birthday and I was in the doghouse but my mother did not forget it and she decided to do a wonderfull cake, but when she was preparing it she made a dogs dinner of it because the cake was not so good... I'm sorry daddy!
Agueda, Chile
I was in the dog house last term..I did not passed a course and My parentes wanted kill me... it was awful
Astrid, Chile
When I was fourteen I went to a party without permission, So my father came and pulled my hair. Then I was really in the dog house.
Silvana, Chile
A long time ago when we were children, a classmate of mine was in the dog house because she had stolen 5 thousand pesos from proffesor's bag...for a couple of weeks she was really unpopular.
                                                                Adapted from bbc.co.uk