The Gathering

The Gathering was born in 1989 in Holland, founded by the brothers Hans Rutten (battery) and René Rutten (guitar), quickly joined by Frank Boeijen (keyboard). The band's name bears witness to the influence of the heroic fantasy universe which then impregnates the musicians.
After a few years, the line up is completed with a second guitar, a bass, a male voice and a female voice. The Gathering's first album, Always , was released in 1992, under the doom death label. The two vocalists of the band set sail shortly afterwards and the band again recruited a singer and a singer to record Almost A Dance in 1994. Already, the founding members see the benefits of a female song and instruments such as flute or piano on their music. Despite a first-part tour of Morbid Angel, success is not really at the rendezvous and The Gathering does not seem to be able to emerge from the mass.
After a new start by the two singers, the band recruited Anneke Van Giersbergen , one of the singers who had worked for them. This decision will transform their careers. Indeed, the beautiful soprano takes over the texts and strongly influences the new orientation of the group. Thus Mandylion came out in 1995, a master blow in the atmospheric doom style, carried by a clear and powerful song and sprinkled with classical instruments. Recognition is immediate. This period of the band's career strongly influenced the symphonic metal scene that will emerge shortly afterwards ( Nightwish, Within Temptation, Therion etc.). The next album, Nighttime Bird, takes up the same ingredients while letting the future rock evolution of the band appear by place, for a result that will not be as unanimously acclaimed as Mandylion. The second guitarist leaves the fraternity during the recording of a new effort, and will not be replaced, Anneke then taking advantage to scratch the 6 strings from time to time in addition. How To Measure A Planet (1998) confirms this evolution towards what the group calls Trip Rock, which will bring them a new audience while driving away others, too attached to the metal side. After having released If There Else in 2000, album that continues the electro/trip rock experiments hovering and gets very positive feedback from critics and fans, the band decided to leave Century Media who refused to give up the metal label for their promotion. They then create their own label, Psychonot Record. This new freedom allows them to work their sound as they hear, and thus to release Souvenirs in 2003, Sleepy Buildings in 2004, a quasi-acoustic album that even revisits titles from the very beginning of the band's career, and Home in 2006, entirely under the pen of Anneke and recorded inside a chapel, for a smooth result. At this stage, The Gathering's second life has reached its peak, and the relative consistency in the quality of albums while remaining atypical is worth a very enviable reputation.
It was after immortalizing Home's tour that Anneke Van Giersbergen decided to leave the band. She has since devoted herself to her other project, Agua De Annique, and is regularly invited by various artists (Napalm Death, Devin Townsend, Globus, etc.). For The Gathering, it's a hard blow. The murmurs as to their definitive separation are going well and many people then misimagined the band without the voice and writing of the singer largely responsible for their success. However, at the end of 2008, the band announced that The Gathering had existed before Anneke, so it will exist afterwards. The singer Silje Wergeland (ex Octavia Sperati) was hired and the album The West Pole was released in 2009 and did not fail to divide opinions.