The Gathering

"Always..."

  1. "The Mirror Waters" (7:12)
  2. "Subzero" (6:54)
  3. "In Sickness and Health" (7:03)
  4. "King for a Day" (6:36)
  5. "Second Sunrise" (6:44)
  6. "Stonegarden" (4:53)
  7. "Always..."--instrumental (2:45)
  8. "Gaya's Dream" (6:04)

Slow, ponderous guitars, with occasional bursts of speed; deep, growly vocals; with lots of atmospheric keyboard riffs throughout. Essentially, this debut CD sounds like a cross between Nocturnus and Candlemass -- the definition of "Doomdeath" metal, I presume. A nice change of pace from ordinary black metal, but nothing I'd run over my grandmother for.

"Almost a Dance"

  1. "On a Wave" (5:51)
  2. "The Blue Vessel" (6:04)
  3. "Her Last Flight" (8:45)
  4. "The Sky People" (4:25)
  5. "Nobody Dares" (3:30)
  6. "Like Fountains" (7:39)
  7. "Proof" (6:15)
  8. "Heartbeat Amplifier" (4:51)
  9. "A Passage to Desire" (6:44)

Interesting sound on this one -- the music's a lot more stripped down, hardly doom at all, plus the (new) lead singer is a dead ringer for Mike Patton! As a result, this album sounds a lot like the thrashier side of Faith No More (with one acoustic song, "Nobody Dares".) I'm sure the vocals would have gotten pretty damn annoying if they kept this guy, however...oh yeah, this CD's also out of print & pretty hard to come buy, so I was lucky to score a copy. :)

"Mandylion"

  1. "Strange Machines" (6:04)
  2. "Eléanor" (6:41)
  3. "In Motion #1" (6:56)
  4. "Leaves" (6:01)
  5. "Fear the Sea" (5:49)
  6. "Mandylion"--instrumental (5:01)
  7. "Sand and Mercury" (9:57)
  8. "In Motion #2" (6:07)

Shortly after posting the Gathering's debut album, I got a FLOOD of emails from people urging me to get into their later stuff, where a chick named Anneke Van Giersbergen took over on lead vocals. So I bought this one, and...DAMN!! What an awesome CD!! The sound could be described as "psychedelic doom", very similar to Sacrilege's Turn Back Trilobite, but MUCH heavier and MUCH better! It goes without saying that I'll be picking up more Gathering CD's in the near future...

Oh yeah, Anneke also performed as the Egyptian Girl on Ayreon's Into the Electric Castle.

"Nighttime Birds"

  1. "On Most Surfaces (Inuit)" (6:54)
  2. "Confusion" (6:33)
  3. "The May Song" (3:44)
  4. "The Earth Is My Witness" (5:31)
  5. "New Moon, Different Day" (6:06)
  6. "Third Chance" (5:25)
  7. "Kevin's Telescope" (3:23)
  8. "Nighttime Birds" (7:02)
  9. "Shrink" (4:02)

Pretty much the same thick, psychedelic sound as Mandylion, equally good if not better. Why on earth didn't they keep making music like this???

"How to Measure a Planet?"

    disc one:
  1. "Frail (You Might as Well Be Me)" (5:04)
  2. "Great Ocean Road" (6:19)
  3. "Rescue Me" (6:22)
  4. "My Electricity" (3:32)
  5. "Liberty Bell" (6:01)
  6. "Red is a Slow Colour" (6:25)
  7. "The Big Sleep" (5:01)
  8. "Marooned" (5:55)
  9. "Travel" (9:06)
    disc two:
  1. "South American Ghost Ride" (4:25)
  2. "Illuminating" (5:41)
  3. "Locked Away" (3:24)
  4. "Probably Built in the Fifties" (7:26)
  5. "How to Measure a Planet?" --instrumental (28:33)

Uhh....uh-oh. Well, I knew that the band took a drastic psychedelic tour on this overblown 2CD set; but what all the reviews failed to mention are the fucking HIP HOP BEATS that permeate most of the songs!! Or sequencers, or whatever you want to call it -- still sounds like a fucking Portishead album, yuck! The nearly 30-minute title track is downright unlistenable -- nothing but ambient noise, with the last 12 or so minutes being ONE SUSTAINED NOTE!!! It's only saving grace is the song "Liberty Bell", which rocks my world, but the rest is so excruciating that I couldn't listen to any music AT ALL for SIX MONTHS after listening to this steaming turd. I sure hope they don't stick with this sound; the band's got too much talent to waste on crap like this.

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