Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 04/25/2006
Ever since their debut as a fairly standard-issue
black metal band in the early '90s, Dutch rockers
the Gathering have shifted their sound and style a few times, particularly since adding lead singer
Anneke Van Giersbergen on 1995's
Mandylion.
Home, the band's first studio release in nearly three years, comes after the birth of
Van Giersbergen's first child and is their most overtly
pop-oriented album yet. First single
"Shortest Day" sounds like an only slightly harder-edged version of
the Cardigans (a good thing) and other songs, like the keyboard-heavy
"Alone" and the echoing, atmospheric bass-led
pop of
"In Between," are
goth-oriented
alternative rock with no
metal influence to speak of.
Home may be a bit of a shock to some longtime fans, but it's the logical conclusion to an ongoing trend in the band's music, one that suits
Van Giersbergen's low-key murmur of a voice quite nicely.
~Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
;)
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