After Forever

Their debut album Prison of Desire was recorded in 2000, featuring a guest appearance of Sharon den Adel of the Dutch band Within Temptation on the song Beyond Me. By the end of the year, drummer André Borgman and keyboardist Lando van Gils joined the band, replacing Beckers and Driessen.

In 2001, the band released the album Decipher, which featured for the first time live classical instruments and a live choir. The complex arrangements of the new compositions pushed After Forever's music even more towards the symphonic metal genre.

Soon after the release of Decipher, After Forever faced a strong creative contrast between founding member and guitarist Mark Jansen and the rest of the band. Mark Jansen had been the main composer of the band together with Sander Gommans and his love for movie soundtracks and classical music had had a strong influence on the musical style of After Forever's first two albums. Moreover, his interest for religious and moral themes had characterized his lyrics for many songs, often collected under a common title (re: The Embrace That Smothers and My Pledge of Allegiance). In the next album, Mark Jansen wanted to further explore complex interactions between classical instruments, choruses in Latin and death metal elements, while Gommans and the others preferred a more direct and aggressive approach to music, retaining some elements that made the sound of the band recognizable, but expanding it in new and different directions. These musical differences led to Mark Jansen leaving the band, in what he felt as an actual dismissal. Upon his departure, Jansen quickly formed another band called Sahara Dust, which later developed into the symphonic metal band Epica. Jansen's place was taken by Bas Maas, who had been the guitar technician for After Forever during the tours of 2001 and 2002.

Floor Jansen's outside activities, as well as the regular jobs and studies of the other After Forever band members, reduced the band's live performances for the rest of 2002 and half of 2003. It was known that the band was working at a new album from the beginning of 2003, but before that could be completed, they would release the EP Exordium in October 2003, containing an instrumental track, three new songs and two covers.

In 2004, the concept album Invisible Circles was released. The album's subject matter was childhood abuse and introduced progressive metal elements to the music of After Forever and the use of a clean male voice. The album reached 24 in the Dutch Top 100 musical chart. In the same year, Lando van Gils also left the band and was replaced by Joost van den Broek, a keyboard player that Floor Jansen had met during her tour with Star One, another project by Arjen Lucassen.

In early September 2005, the band released their fourth album Remagine. The album was produced using pre-recorded drum tracks by André Borgman, who had to take a leave of absence due to illness. The songs of the album are simpler and more straightforward than in the previous albums, while still preserving the dual voice dynamic in the sound of the band.

On 3 March 2006 the band left the 'Transmission Records' label, due to the scarce promotion that the label was providing to their albums; 'Transmission' would later go bankrupt. After Forever moved on to sign to the German 'Nuclear Blast Records' label. Following this departure, 'Transmission Records' released the Mea Culpa compilation, featuring rarities and B-sides.

In late 2006 the band recorded what would be their final album, and their only through 'Nuclear Blast', the self-titled After Forever (2007) featuring guest appearances from Annihilator guitarist Jeff Waters and Doro Pesch. Videos of the recording sessions were available for download on the band's website.

In January 2008, After Forever announced on their website, that the band would be taking a break of at least a year, mainly to assess the health problems of vocalist and guitarist Sander Gommans, who had been absent during most of the tour supporting the last album. In an interview with Ragnarök radio, Floor said the band would get together early 2009 to discuss the band's future; when that meeting did happen they decided to call it quits.

After the split up of the band, Sander Gommans released the album System Overload in 2009 with his solo project HDK, followed by Serenades of the Netherworld in 2014. He also created Magic-O-Metal, a metal/comic project for children, and works as a high school art teacher.

Floor Jansen started a new band called ReVamp, which got signed by 'Nuclear Blast' and released the albums ReVamp in 2010 and Wild Card in 2013. The band was on hold for a while after the release of ReVamp because of Jansen's health problems and her subsequent recruitment as the new lead singer for Nightwish. Jansen's involvement with Nightwish ultimately caused ReVamp to call it quits.

Joost van den Broek collaborated with both Gommans and Jansen on their new musical projects, while also leading several symphonic/crossover projects, particularly the Christmas Metal Symphony shows in 2008 and 2009 and Stream of Passion's second album The Flame Within. He has since focused mostly on composing and studio work, but sporadically performs live, mainly as a session member of Ayreon and The Gentle Storm.

Bas Maas joined the live band supporting German hard rock singer Doro Pesch in 2008.

Both André Borgman and Luuk van Gerven joined Robby Valentine's live band while After Forever was on hiatus. Borgman also joined Amanda Somerville's band Trillium in 2017, thereby reuniting with his former band mate Sander Gommans.