After Forever was originally assembled in 1995 under the name Apocalypse, playing death metal, with harsh male vocals. With the joining of vocalist Floor Jansen in 1997, their style and sound shifted towards symphonic metal, in order to give emphasis to her soprano voice, in contrast with the grunts and screams provided by Gommans and Mark Jansen. Their line-up at this point comprised Floor Jansen, Mark Jansen, Sander Gommans, Luuk van Gerven, Jack Driessen and Joep Beckers.
In 1999 the band began composing their own songs and recorded two demos entitled Ephemeral and Wings Of Illusion, which drew the attention of the Dutch Transmission Records label, with whom the band signed a contract.
Their debut album Prison Of Desire was recorded in 2000, featuring the guest appearance of Sharon Den Adel of the Dutch band Within Temptation on the song "Beyond Me". The album obtained very good reviews in Europe. By the end of the year, drummer André Borgman and keyboardist Lando van Gils joined the band, replacing Joep Beckers and Jack Driessen. During the year 2000, Floor Jansen was invited to guest sing in Ayreon's Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer album. Ayreon is the most successful of the many projects by Dutch guitarist Arjen Anthony Lucassen and this album is only the first of many other collaborations with Floor Jansen. Wikipedia