Anneke van Giersbergen.

You may prefer your Toris or your Anis, or even your Aguilieras and Maddies, but for me, Anneke stands comfortably among, and sometimes defiantly above them. She can sing sweetly, bitterly, she can rock and swoon, and more often than not, you have to believe she can do no wrong. The experimentation within the group known as The Gathering makes the rest look like they’re dipping their collective big toe in the water. For their first full-length since leaving longtime label Century Media, “Souvenirs” has all the markings of that big splash.

The big sore spot is that their adventurous side may have gotten the better of them this time. Even when they were firmly a goth-metal group, the band always stood slightly apart from their contemporaries. Through the years, the sound has relied less on crazy-amped guitar and more on twisted ambient loops, acoustic instruments, string orchestration and, as evidenced on their epic two-disc set “How To Measure A Planet?”, an alternative sound they have termed “triprock”. “Souvenirs” seizes on that the most; a shock to the system if anyone was expecting the more traditional hard rock of their previous “If_Then_Else”.

I suppose I was unprepared for “Souvenirs”. Many of the songs rely so heavily on ambient digital loops that I found myself constantly being distracted by them. The song would melt away before my ears, replaced by angry robot-insect chanting. This is really too bad because the songs that are here are, all in all, very good. “Broken Glass” actually benefits from the trippy textures because it lulls you into a trance before the final chorus breaks into Rene Rutten’s big reverb guitar a’la Godspeed You Black Emperor. “You Learn About It” is, without doubt, unrepentantly a pop song. It’s also very catchy and features Anneke’s most beautiful vocal rendition to date.

“A Life All Mine”, a duet with Trickster G (a/k/a Ulver’s Krys Rygg) closes the disc on a dour, somber note and is probably the most appropriate way to go out. It feels like a closing statement, but the sequencing of songs takes the proverbial whack at the knees, as the tone of them from mid-disc on gets more oppressive and grim. It surely seems like intended construction, something along the lines of a song cycle but I have to say it, had “A Life All Mine” not been the conclusion of this downward spiral, it probably would have been that much more noteworthy.

It is the curse of the modern musician that what is considered most modern is the art of obscurity; by which I mean that The Gathering has proven time and again what great musicians they are, and yet so much of their talent is behind this wall of zip, tweeze, grind and chatter. I can’t say there’s a bad song on “Souvenirs” and it may be a case of me being too critical, but this music could have been so much more effective had producer Zlaya Hadzich imposed subtlety over atmosphere.

As a judgment call for what actually is there, “Souvenirs” is a really good listen with some incredible parts. It shows a band that is not interested in following the herd or repeating, willing to take risks and try out new, sometimes disorienting things. Still, they already have everything it takes to do that without hiding behind the gauze of noise. Highly recommended, but with reservations.

Search Tour Database by: Artist City Venue

The Gathering

Souvenirs

Released: April 25, 2003
Origination Year: 2003
Time: N/A
Tracks:10
Produced by:Zlaya Hadzich
Engineered by:N/Ar
Mastered by:N/A
Style: Studio
Format: CD
Enhancement: None
Label: The End Records
Website:
www.gathering.nl

These Good People
Even the Spirits are Afraid
Broken Glass
You Learn About It
Souvenirs
We Just Stopped Breathing
Monsters
Golden Grounds
Jelena
A Life All Mine