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The Gathering: The west pole

24/04/09 || Euthanatos

Well, by now you should know that the FUCKING GODDESS Anneke left The Gathering for the greener pastures of Agua de Annique. Incidentally, I got to see her live a while back with that band and she is just as sexy, adorable and talented in person than on video/album. So what do you do when you lose such a kickass vocalist and pretty much face of the band? You pick up the pieces, keep your chin up and keep going, if you’re not a wuss, that is, so major props for The Gathering for having the balls to move on.

So what The Gathering effectively did was get this fine lass called Silje Wergeland, from a band called Octavia Sperati, to fill in those great, gigantic shoes of Anneke’s and pray to heavenly father that they still had it. Do they? Sorry, but not really.

Firstly, no fault can be found in Silje. Naturally she does not have the charisma and superhuman powers of Anneke, but she is a good singer, a damn good singer, and what’s cool is that she sounds nothing like Anneke. She walks her own path, has a pleasant voice and technically is pretty darn spiffy. So what’s wrong, then, love?

I’m just not feeling the songwriting on “The West Pole”. The remaining members of the band had already hinted at this new album being much more rock-driven than previous efforts, and while I thought that might have been a good thing, since “Home” was kind of boring, but, to my surprise, this is, once again, an entirely different band.

Yes, on one side that is admirable, how The Gathering manages to reinvent itself as a rock band/musical group. On the downside, though, while the move to alternative rock and electronica was incredibly fitting and the songwriting that followed was prodigious (mostly), this time they’ve moved towards an indie-brit-rock place which does not please me. At all.

The songs aren’t terribly dull, but they seem commonplace. Nothing makes you grit your teeth, grab your balls, not a hair stands up when that killer chorus comes in. There just isn’t any of that here, and no matter what fault you could find in their discography, there was always at least one song on their albums which made you think “God damn, I wish I had written that”, or “Fuck me, I want to marry Anneke”.

The title-track is a welcome exception, is does have a great vibe, some nice vocal lines, but it isn’t really all that memorable.

So, I fear that maybe when Anneke left, she took The Gathering’s identity with her, something that, no matter what sound the band pursued, would always be there as a rock for the listener. Now, the band sounds uncertain, and it’s only at moments like “No Bird Call” that we get a glimpse of the group that made moving stuff like “In Motion II”, “Shrink”, “Eleanor”, “You Learn About It” and so on.

I, for one, won’t abandon The Gathering just now. I have a feeling they’ve still got some good stuff in them, and for a first album after such a drastic departure, this isn’t that bad. It’s not great, but it could be worse. Maybe with a little more experience and familiarity with the new vocalist, better things shall come to pass. We’ll see.

The cover: A bloke upside-down, which happens to be very fitting. Did you notice I failed to make any pole jokes, though? I’m kinda disappointed with myself for that.

4 Dutch indies and one Norwegian hippie out of 10.

Information
Released: 2009
Label: Psychonaut Records
Website: www.gathering.nl
Band
Silje Wergeland: vocals
René Rutten: guitars
Marjolein Kooijman: bass
Hans Rutten; drums
Frank Boeijen: keyboards

Tracklist
01. When Trust Becomes Sound
02. Treasure
03. All You Are
04. The West Pole
05. No Bird Call
06. Capital of Nowhere
07. You Promised Me a Symphony
08. Pale Traces
09. No One Spoke
10. Constant Run

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