Epica Announce New EP, Release Single “The Solace System”

Epica, the power metal band for people who don’t like power metal, have announced that they’ll release a new EP, The Solace System, on September 1 via Nuclear Blast. Hey! That’s just a day after they launch a tour with Lacuna Coil and Insomnium. Lucky timing, that!

Anyhoo, even though a press release says that the songs on The Solace System “were created during the creative phase” (as opposed to…?) of last year’s The Holographic Principle, they don’t simply represent material deemed not-worthy of being on that album, according to guitarist/growler Mark Jansen:

“The listeners can expect a high-quality EP – with songs that are far too good to use them only as bonus tracks. We wanted to publish these songs together in a context. It is always hard to decide at the end of a recording process which songs will be on the album, because this means that you have to miss some songs with best quality, just because they do not fit quite well into the overall flow of the record or because there are other songs that are more suited to the lyrics.”

Of course, it’s not as though Jansen is gonna say “These are garbage but we put them out in hopes we make some extra money regardless,” but based on the title track, I’m inclined to take him at his word. Not only is this song catchy as hell, but it kinda made me wish I was a Hobbit for a minute. That’s no small feat.

Check out “The Solace System” the song via the below video. Then pre-order The Solace System the EP here. Get those upcoming tour dates here.