Signing to Nuclear Blast and releasing “The Divine Conspiracy” became a new stage for Epica, who are already showing off their entire creative growth. An exacting title and provocative artwork make the first impressions of the new album. However, these are not the only surprises. The record is an hour and 15 minutes long, which is a great achievement for a symphonic power metal band, and has song titles that describe a general history divided into different parts. The tendency of female-fronted groups finding the fast way to success becomes clearer at this moment, and they’re showing up more and more often. In “The Divine Conspiracy”, as created by such a band, you will not hear anything super-mega-hyper new nor different from the already well-known musical construction and leading vocal motive built on the base of melodic, almost operatic female singing and the gruff male scream which adds power and epic to the sound, but all these are combined with ornate orchestrations, which are not irritating and make it interesting and nice for listening to. The diversity of rhythms and the usual changes of tempo and moods in each song are obvious here. Simone Simons succeeded in outrunning her colleagues and showed fast progress in the last few years. Today she is recording guest appearances in albums by Primal Fear, Ayreon and Kamelot, which is not bad, although Simone distracts the listeners’ attention from her main band. However, she is an example for good PR that works for both the young Dutch and the musicians around her. I can say that Epica have recorded their best album until now. Anyway, they should undertake many changes to become a band for which we can conclude that they are metal lawmakers, not another sympho-power cloning.