Decipher is the second album by Dutch symphonic metal band After Forever, released in 2001. In this album, the band make use of live classical instruments and a complete choir to back up the soprano voice of lead singer Floor Jansen. Thrown in the mix are also a duet of soprano and tenor voices in "Imperfect Tenses" and the recording of the late Israeli PM Yizhak Rabin voice during the Peace treaty signing ceremony on October 26, 1994 on "Forlorn Hope". This is the last After Forever album with guitarist and founder Mark Jansen, who left the band soon after its release.
The album has been re-released by Transmission Records in 2003 in a limited edition of 5,000 copies worldwide. The limited edition in digipack had an extended booklet, a sticker with new artwork and two bonus live tracks.
The album was re-released in 2012 as a 2-disc set by the re-financed Transmission Records.
MV Zenith is a cruise ship owned by the Spain-based shipping company Pullmantur Cruises. She was built in 1992 by Meyer Werft, Papenburg, Germany for Celebrity Cruises.
The Zenith was built as a sister ship to Celebrity Cruises' first newbuild MV Horizon. Her interiors were designed by Michael Katsourakis and British designer John McNeece. The Zenith was delivered in February 1992 and set under Liberian flag. She was used for cruises from Florida to the Caribbean and Bermuda islands. In 2002 she was reflagged in the Bahamas. In 2007 she was transferred to Pullmantur Cruises and used for cruises around the Mediterranean.
A 7-Night Cruise from 11 to 18 March 1995 aboard the Zenith is the subject of David Foster Wallace's 1995 essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" (collected in a collection of the same name and originally published in Harper's as "Shipping Out"). Wallace refers to the Zenith as the Nadir throughout (although he insists "the rechristening's nothing particular against the ship itself").
Zénith is a professional football club based in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Obscura is a German technical death metal band from Landshut, Germany. The band became prominent when members of Necrophagist and Pestilence joined Steffen Kummerer to release the critically acclaimed second full-length album, Cosmogenesis. Obscura are known for playing highly sophisticated music, with several band members having studied music theory.
Obscura's discography draws significant philosophical influences from Arthur Schopenhauer,Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schelling, whose writings on Naturphilosophie formed the conceptual basis for their lyrics.
Obscura was founded in 2002 by Steffen Kummerer. The band was named after the Gorguts album Obscura. Finished in August 2004, Obscura self-released Retribution in 2006 and toured alongside Suffocation within Europe. In 2007, drummer Hannes Grossmann (ex-Necrophagist), fretless bassist Jeroen Paul Thesseling and guitarist Christian Muenzner (ex-Necrophagist) were recruited as new permanent members.
Obscura is the third album by Gorguts. It is recognized as one of metal's most technical and complex albums, consisting of many experimental and dissonant melodies, and strange rhythms.
The album was reissued on vinyl in April 2012 by War on Music, and again in April 2015 on both CD and vinyl format by Century Media Records.
Following release in 1993 of their second full-length The Erosion of Sanity, the band did a European tour. The band's return coincided with the decline of death metal's popularity, and they were subsequently dropped from the Roadrunner roster. Following their departure from the label, they "started writing material for Obscura". Gorguts also lost both their drummer and guitarist, who simply left the band. They were replaced by 'Purulence' guitarist Steeve Hurdle and 'Psychic Throb' bassist Steve Cloutier.
William York of Allmusic categorized Obscura as "one of the most challenging, difficult albums ever released within the metal genre" and "a work of great depth and vision".