Invisible Circles - Concept and Storyline

Concept and Storyline

The concept of Invisible Circles was shaped by After Forever's singer and lyricist Floor Jansen, taking inspiration from Sander Gommans' job as an art teacher. His daily contact with children with social and family problems had given him the desire to make people aware of these problems by incorporating their stories into songs. He had also realized that those children's problems often stemmed from the psychological traumas that their parents had experienced in their past. Gommans described the title and the concept of the album in these terms: "Invisible Circles describes the paths of life that someone can follow. Life consists of several circles that you can follow; many times you will come back at the beginning of a circle, although you have tried to get out of that particular circle."

The plot revolves around a dysfunctional family, comprising a father, a mother, their daughter and the father's mother. The story begins with two lovers, whose relationship is running dry. They decide to have a child, which the woman believes may save their relationship ("Between Love and Fire"). The birth of a baby girl destroys in the mother her hopes for a brilliant professional career and smothers her passion. On the other hand, the newborn child causes in the father a stiffening of his feelings and the refusal to compromise his career for a "spoilt brat" ("Sins of Idealism"). The girl, perceived in the family as an unwanted burden, tries to adapt to the psychological abuse she receives, but she is the object of frequent quarrels and grows sad and depressed ("Beautiful Emptiness"). She searches for quietness and strength in her inner fantasy world, and friendship and love on the internet, becoming ever more detached from the real world and eccentric in the eyes of her schoolmates and parents ("Eccentric", "Digital Deceit", "Through Square Eyes"). The line of pain that connects the child to her parents appears indestructible and the situation gets worse when the father thinks of leaving ("Blind Pain", "Two Sides"). The intervention of the girl's grandmother reveals that the father was himself a neglected child and a victim of his family ("Victim of Choices"). The father's anger is a reaction to his abuse as a child and this realization seems to soften the girl's pain, bringing her out of her defensive shell ("Reflections"). In conclusion, the grown-up daughter, now a mother herself, faces the same dilemmas of her parents and is bound to repeat her parents' mistakes, closing the invisible circle that endures from one generation to another ("Life's Vortex").