Epica vocalist Simone Simons recently spoke with Greece's Rock Overdose about the band's new album, The Quantum Enigma, as well as motherhood and her thoughts on the key to success as a band. An excerpt is available below:

Rock Overdose: I was looking at your artwork, and I could see many elements, many symbols. Can you tell us about one that is “hidden” let’s say and someone couldn’t interpret that easily?

Simone: "I would say that it’s quite visible that in the background, between the elements of water wind fire and earth, there are some elements that you might not see at first. There are the little boats, which mean our search for reality. That’s a symbol for the mankind search for life, all the questions of the mystery of life: what is time, what is God, what are we, where are we…Buddha itself stands for spirituality, the Eye in the mountain stands for our observation, and the mountain itself is only the beginning of what we see and what we can’t see in the ocean, and another thing that people cannot see, and I can’t blame them, is that when you open the booklet you can see that the cover is just the center of the artwork. There’s more artwork when you open the booklet. That’s what people cannot see usually until they have the physical copy in their hands."

Go to this location for the complete interview transcription and audio files.

The Quantum Enigma tracklist is as follows:

"Originem"
"The Second Stone"
"The Essence Of Silence"
"Victims Of Contingency"
"Sense Without Sanity (The Impervious Code)"
"Unchain Utopia"
"The Fifth Guardian" (Interlude) "Chemical Insomnia"
"Reverence (Living In The Heart)"
"Omen (The Ghoulish Malady)"
"Canvas Of Life"
"Natural Corruption"
"The Quantum Enigma (Kingdom Of Heaven Part II)"

Digipack additional track: "In All Conscience"

Earbook additional track: "Dreamscape"

Vinyl additional track: "Memento"

iTunes additional track: "Banish Your Illusion"

Disc 2 (Digipack and Earbook only):

"Canvas Of Life" (acoustic version)

"In All Conscience" (acoustic version)

"Dreamscape" (acoustic version)

"Natural Corruption" (acoustic version)

Disc 3 (Earbook Only):

"Originem" (instrumental)

"The Second Stone" (instrumental)

"The Essence Of Silence" (instrumental)

"Victims Of Contingency" (instrumental)

"Sense Without Sanity" (instrumental)

"Unchain Utopia" (instrumental)

"The Fifth Guardian" (instrumental)

"Chemical Insomnia" (instrumental)

"Reverence" (instrumental)

"Omen" (instrumental)

"Canvas Of Life" (instrumental)

"Natural Corruption" (instrumental)

"The Quantum Enigma" (instrumental)

Epica have released a lyric video for the track "Unchain Utopia", featured on the band's new album, The Quantum Enigma, released on May 6th.

Commented guitarist Mark Jansen: “The "Unchain Utopia" lyric video is one of the coolest lyric videos I have ever seen. The footage worked out very well for this approach. Images and words strengthen each other. Initially we had a normal video in mind but that didn't have the same impact. We hope you will enjoy "Unchain Utopia"!!!“

Bass and drum playthrough clips for "The Essence Of Silence" featuring Rob van der Loo and Arien van Weesenbeek respectively:

Epica recently checked in with the following update: "We are excited to announce that we will perform in Lebanon this summer. On August 2nd we will perform at the Byblos International festival in Jbeil-Byblos. We have had a lot of requests from Lebanese fans over the years to perform there. We are happy it will finally happen!"

Go to this location for event information.

Epica's schedule is now as follows:

June

7 - Landgraaf, The Netherlands - Pinkpop
14 - Nickelsdorf, Austria - Novarock
29 - Den Haag, The Netherlands - Parkpop

July

5 - Barcelona, Spain - Barcelona Rock Festival
11 - Vizovice, Czech Republic - Masters Of Rock
12 - Wegorzewo, Poland - Seven Festival

August

2 - Jbeil-Byblos, Lebanon - Byblos International Festival
8 - Vagos, Portugal - Vagos Open Air
10 - Montreal, Quebec - Heavy MTL
16 - Hasselt, Belgium - Pukkelpop
17 - Saint Nolff, France - Motocultor Festival
21 - Bogotá Colombia - Metal Millenium 2014

November

20 - Luxembourg, Luxembourg - Kulturfabrik
21 - Strasbourg, France - La Laiterie
22 - Zurich, Switzerland - X-TRA
24 - Milan, Italy - Alcatraz
25 - Rome, Italy - Orion
26 - Marseille, France - Le Moulin
28 - Madrid, Spain - Shoko
29 - Lisbon, Portugal - Paradise Garage
30 - Porto, Portugal - Hard Club Porto Portugal

December

2 - Barcelona, Spain - Apolo
3 - Toulouse, France - Bikini
4 -Bordeaux, France - Rocher de Palmer
6 - London, UK - The Forum

January

15 - Paris, France - L’Olympia