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".

[3][4] 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.

By the end of 2001, After Forever appeared as rising stars on the dynamic scene of Dutch metal, which included bands like The Gathering, Within Temptation, Gorefest and Ayreon.

[11] Critics were impressed by the remarkable musicianship of the young members of the band and in particular by Floor Jansen's vocals, both in studio and in live performances.

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.

[21] August and September 2002 were dedicated to a European tour, supporting Finnish act Nightwish and attending some rock festivals,[22] which exposed the band to larger audiences and gained them even more favourable press.

[23][24] Further media exposure came from Floor Jansen's collaboration with Dutch multi-instrumentalist and composer Arjen Anthony Lucassen, for the recording of Star One's album Space Metal and the subsequent tour in late 2002.

In Jansen’s words "the EP Exordium was like an introduction to this new full length album and the subjects of the lyrics are already connected to the concept (...) meaning they are also dealing with modern, social problems".

The album, that deals with childhood traumas and abuse, introduced progressive metal elements to the music of After Forever and the use of a clean male voice.

The album was produced using pre-recorded drum tracks by André Borgman, who had to take a long leave of absence to cure his illness.

[36] 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 has since focused mostly on composing and studio work, but sporadically performs live, mainly as a session member of Ayreon and The Gentle Storm.

The line-up during these two shows are set to consist of Sander Gommans, Bas Maas, Luuk van Gerven, André Borgman, Mark Jansen, Jeffrey Revet and Angel Wolf-Black.