Production
Sander Gommans started the composition of the basic melodies for Invisible Circles at the beginning of 2003 in his home studio in Reuver, working at the same time on new songs for the EP Exordium. This part of the creative process had been shared with Mark Jansen for the previous albums and it would be shared with keyboard player Joost van den Broek for the following ones. Gommans wrote the songs for the new album with the precise idea of pushing the music of the band closer to progressive metal, reducing the gothic atmospheres of the previous releases to a minimum and adopting as many different musical styles as he felt necessary to the convey the message of the songs. Meanwhile, his fiancée Floor Jansen was writing the lyrics and shaping the plot for the concept album.
The band reunited at Excess Studios in Rotterdam in July 2003, a few weeks after recording Exordium, to arrange the new songs and to record the instrumental tracks, under supervision of producer Hans Pieters and sound engineer Dennis Leidelmeijer. Every member of the band contributed to the music, which is credited for the most part to all six musicians. When the instrumental tracks were ready, the band moved in August 2003 to Gate Studio in Wolfsburg, Germany, where all solo vocal parts were arranged by the band, under supervision of American singer and producer Amanda Somerville. She also contributed, along with Jay Lansford, the recited parts that connect the songs to each other and explain parts of the plot. The solo vocals of Jansen, Gommans and Bas Maas were recorded separately by producers Sascha Paeth and Michael “Miro” Rodenberg. Female soprano vocals, grunts and clean male vocals represent in the songs different feelings and behaviours of the characters. The final stage of the recording process was executed at Arts Music Recording studio in Rhoon from 20 to 24 October 2003, under supervision of Peter Arts. The orchestra and choir parts were arranged there by Cees’ Kieboom, who also contributed some additional keyboards to smooth the transition between the different instrumental parts. The final mixing of all the parts was executed by Sascha Paeth at The Pathway Studio in Wolfsburg, Germany in November and December 2003, except the instrumental introduction "Childhood in Minor" mixed by Sander Gommans. The album was mastered at Sound Factory by Peter van 't Riet for a release in early 2004.
Invisible Circles was released by Transmission Records on 25 March 2004. "Digital Deceit" was the only single issued from the album and released on 20 May 2004. A high tech video clip was produced for the song by D'iMages, the same company that had done the video clip for the 2003 single "My Choice", extracted from Exordium. The video was aired on Dutch MTV and on local musical TV stations.
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