The Gathering

The Gathering is a beloved, atmospheric rock band from Holland. Their commercially successful sound weds neo-prog, indie rock, experimental electronics, and Gothic tenets. Though they began recording and touring as a doom metal act during the early 1990s, 1995′s Mandylion showcased the addition of frontwoman Anneke van Giersbergen, marking the first stages of their sonic transition, and the album became their commercial breakthrough in Europe. The van Giersbergen era lasted until 2008 and resulted in several charting albums, including 2003′s Souvenirs and 2006′s Home. Since the arrival of frontwoman/composer/pianist Silje Wergeland for 2009′s The West Pole, their music continued to travel in more experimental directions, embracing elements of neo-psychedelia, trip-hop, shoegaze, and textured ambience as evidenced by 2013′s Afterwords. Following the global COVID-19 quarantine, the Gathering returned in 2022 with Beautiful Distortion, their first studio album in a decade.
The Gathering was founded in 1989 by drummer Hans Rutten and brother/guitarist René Rutten along with vocalist Bart Smits. They added guitarist Jelmer Wiersma, keyboardist Frank Boeijen, and bassist Hugo Prinsen Geerligs. Deeply influenced by the death and doom metal scenes in Europe –- in particular Celtic Frost and Hellhammer -– The Gathering followed suit. In 1990 they recorded the demo An Imaginary Symphony. It received positive response from the underground metal scene due to its then-unusual use of keyboards in metal. A second demo, Moonlight Archer, followed in April 1991. Despite its poor production sound, several music journalists embraced it, helping to establish the band’s name. As a result they won an opening slot for Samael and Morbid Angel.
Impressed by their performances, Foundation 2000 signed the band and issued their debut long player, Always, in 1992. The set was a fairly straightforward doom metal outing with additional textural and atmospheric dimensions provided by keyboards and female vocalist Marike Groot. The band were quite taken with the possibilities that added vocals provided and sought a less bombastic musical direction. Smits and Groot, however, didn’t see it that way. Both left the band in the aftermath, citing creative differences.
1994′s Almost a Dance saw the addition of vocalists Niels Duffhues and Martine van Loon. The former’s punk-ish tone was, according to fans who mercilessly criticized the album, decidedly out of step with the quality and timbre of the music. By contrast, Van Loon was a low-key singer with a lovely alto who seldom took the forefront. It was their least successful outing critically and commercially. Even the band admitted its misstep to fans.
In the aftermath, the Gathering doubled down and decided to pair their evolving and musically compelling compositional style with a female vocalist capable of fronting the band by herself. To that end they hired vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist Anneke van Giersbergen, who had spent the previous few years singing jazz, blues, and funk in a performing duo. Van Giersbergen possessed the control and projection necessary to imbue each line with abundant emotion. She made her recorded debut on 1995′s Mandylion, the Gathering’s Century Media debut and commercial breakthrough. Co-produced by Siggi Bemm and Waldemar Sorychta, it showcased the band’s complexly architected prog and alt rock approach wed to doom metal atmospherics. The musicians met van Giersbergen’s powerfully delivered, poetic, haunting lyrics in darkly dramatic songs. Thanks to a pair of charting singles -– “Adrenaline/Leaves” and “Strange Machines” -– the band won performing slots on the stages of the Dynamo Open Air and Pinkpop festivals that summer and toured across Europe as reviews of Mandylion reached the United States and Mexico. It went on to sell more than 130,000 copies.
They followed two years later with the Bemm-produced Nighttime Birds. A kind of thematic companion to Mandylion, it is similar in tone and filled with the melodic, adventurous interplay that established the band’s sonic trademark. Though not quite as popular as its predecessor, it still managed to sell an astonishing 100,000 copies, proving the Gathering weren’t a one-hit wonder. Guitarist Jelmer Wiersma amicably left the band following the support tour.
Produced by Attie Bauw, 1998′s How to Measure a Planet? was a conceptual double album whose songs seemingly centered around various aspects of space travel. Musically, it revealed a consequential departure from what remained of their doom metal origins. Widely acclaimed by critics for embracing shoegaze and trip hop, it did meet with some resistance from longtime, more metal-oriented fans. Though it didn’t sell as well as either of its predecessors, it garnered enough international support to warrant the band undertaking a ten-date tour in the United States in 1999.
While still under contract to Century Media, the Gathering formed their own Psychonaut Records label in 1999. They remastered and re-released Always and Almost a Dance in 2000 with new artwork. They fulfilled their contractual obligation to Century Media with the live Superheat, recorded during their 1999 Dutch tour, and the studio album, If Then Else. The latter offered a diverse collection of intensely emotional, nearly cinematic rock songs. They supported the latter release with a 15-month European tour and an overseas jaunt to Mexico.
The band went on a short hiatus in 2001. While spending time with families and pursuing other projects, the band celebrated the founding of Psychonaut with the release of Black Light District, a four-track EP that included four videos as bonus tracks.
The returned to work in 2002 and almost immediately entered an Amsterdam recording studio with producer Zlaya Hadzich. They emerged with the 11-track Souvenirs in 2003. Easily their most experimental offering, it featured guest spots by Ulver’s Kristoffer Rygg (Garm), choral vocals, trumpet by vanguard jazzman Mathias Eick, and beats by Kid Sublime. The set went Top 50 at home and placed inside the Top 100 on Germany’s pop charts. It was their last album to feature original bassist Hugo Prinsen Geerligs until his return in 2022. In 2004, the Gathering released the semi-acoustic live album Sleepy Buildings and A Sound Relief in 2005; the latter was a live DVD containing gentler, semi-acoustic songs.
Released in April of 2006, Home was the Gathering’s final album to feature van Giersbergen, who had become a mother. Produced by Bauw, it was issued by Noise Records in Europe, and the End Records in the U.S., South America, and Asia. It featured new bassist Marjolein Kooijman, and drew rave reviews for its wide range of textures, dynamics, and original songs. It went Top 40 at home and also charted in France and Hungary.
Van Giersbergen left in 2007 following a support tour with Lacuna Coil. She later formed the band Agua de Annique. The Gathering released a second DVD from a live show in Santiago, Chile in March 2007. Titled A Noise Severe, it showcased the band’s harder-edged songs. The year also saw an expanded, remastered reissue of Nighttime Birds that included a bonus disc of demos and live and unreleased cuts.
Van Giersbergen’s departure wasn’t announced until February 2008 when the Gathering issued the limited-edition box set Sand and Mercury: The Complete Century Media Years. They also returned to the studio to begin working on their ninth album. The resulting West Pole was released in March 2009. It marked the debut of lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist/songwriter Silje Wergeland (Octavia Sperati). Interestingly, it also featured a guest spot from Mexican singer Marcela Bovio, who went on to front Dutch symphonic metal band MaYan.
Disclosure arrived from Psychonaut in 2012. Produced by René Rutten, it drew massive global acclaim for its prog-like experimentalism. The band followed with 2014′s companion offering Afterwords. In addition to arriving during the band’s 25th anniversary, it included a guest spot from original lead vocalist Smits on the title track. That same year, the Gathering performed a series of sold-out shows with three of the group’s previous vocalists (Smits, Groot, van Giersbergen) as well as Wergeland. Following these shows, they released TG25: Live at Dornroosje. Kooijman announced her departure from the Gathering, who also announced they were going on an indefinite hiatus. Blueprints, a double album of outtakes, demos, and unreleased songs from the recordings of Souvenirs and Home, arrived in 2016. Expanded audio versions of their DVDs, A Sound Relief and A Noise Severe were issued in 2018.
In 2021, the Gathering returned to the recording studio for the first time since 2013. Hugo Prinsen Geerligs returned to play bass, guitar, and piano on 2022′s eight-track full-length Beautiful Distortion produced by Bauw. ~ Thom Jurek