A week punctuated only by a rather unexpected call from my best friend, which saw me leaving the abode to go and have dinner with him. A very posh affair - at least for my standards - but the night was fun, if maybe a tad too heavy on the booze, though not in the quantities thereof imbibed, but rather there was some mixing of the beverages that could’ve easily gone awry. More household drama, more money going out the window for silly reasons, and not even the games I’m playing provide much - if any - respite. On that note, I’m looking to start writing on the regular about them. But first I need to finish a post I started writing this past week, and I’lll have to rework it a bit because I was distracted. And by my 2005 or thereabouts self, no less.
Now, on to the music. A week spent with the ladies, and to be honest - it wasn’t as much fun as I’d anticipated. Pretty much all of these artists / bands were incredibly important to me over 30 years ago, though as time went on I stopped listening to their output.
This is a band that I listened to for the first time on the very same day and occasion as the last band for this week. In the early to mid-90s there was a record store I bought most of my records from, and one day in I waltz and they’re playing ‘Strange Machines’, off of ‘Mandylion’. And from that moment on I only sort of loved The Gathering. Mostly because of their then singer’s voice. In the late 90s / early 00s I lost track of them, and it wouldn’t be until 2003 when they released ‘Souvenirs’ that I fell in love with them. That and their follow up to that album, ‘Home’. Then Anneke left the band, and had a few projects - including Agua de Annique - all of which sounded way too The Gathering-y for me, and I put them in the back burner. Eventually I came to learn that they’d recruited a new singer, but I never bothered with them. Until now, that is. So what did I think? A very good surprise this, the new singer has a great voice that sounds distinctly different from Anneke, yet at the same time is eerily reminiscent of it in spots. It’s very hard to believe it's the same band that released ‘Mandylion’ and ‘Nighttime Birds’, but then they were also (mostly) the same band that recorded ‘Always’ and ‘Almost a Dance’. There’s some true progression here. It gets a good 8,5/10
Day 41 - VUUR - ‘In This Moment We Are Free - Cities’
One such project Anneke had was this one. And besides her amazing voice, was this any good? Well, no, not really. I hated the sound of the guitars, I found the production to be dull, and it’s so long it overstays its welcome. 5/10
Day 42 - Anneke van Giersbergen - ‘The Darkest Skies Are the Brightest’
Delicate, beautiful, great compositions, the complete opposite of VUUR
Definitely a 7.5/10
Day 43 - The Third And The Mortal - 'Memoirs'
Probably the most influential band for me from this time period. Their debut album - ‘Tears Laid In Earth’ - is one of those ones where I was the exact moment I listened to for the first time. They had a singer back then called Kari Rueslåtten, who has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard, but she only stuck with the band for that first album and an EP called ‘Sorrow’. And then everything changed - she left the band, and in came Ann-Mari Edvardsen. Out went the doom-y, atmospheric metal they played, and in came the experimental / trip-hop-y / ambient sounds found in ‘Painting On Glass’ and ‘In This Room’. Needless to say, I too eventually left them firmly behind. From what I’ve gathered, Ann-Mari also left the band, and they got another singer. And this record is a mixed bag for me. So far from the band I once knew, very Bjork-y, very Massive Attack-y, Bowie-esque vocals.
Good but not great, maybe a 6/10
Day 44 - Tactile Gemma -‘Tactile Gemma’
This is a project the aforementioned Ann-Mari Edvardsen had with her sister Monika and another bloke.
Meh. Maybe too experimental for its own sake. There are a lot of good vocalisations here, if maybe often veering on the annoying, but overall I found it dull. I’m sure I’ll never listen to it again. 5/10 and this is a kindness.
Day 45 - Lacuna Coil - ‘Sleepless Empire’
So I first discovered them when they opened for someone back in late 96 or early 97 - either Moonspell or Cradle Of Filth - and I loved what I saw live. When they released their first EP, I bought it at once and loved it - still do, in fact. But I didn’t really like the follow up album, and I gave up on them. I never listened to another one of their records. And maybe I shouldn’t have listened to another album, because I really didn’t like any of it. It’s chock full of the clichés that explain so dearly why (most) metal since the 00s doesn’t click with me. Imma give this one a 4/10. Yuck.
Day 46 - Theatre Of Tragedy - ‘Forever Is The World’
Just as important as The Third And The Mortal to me, and I may like them even more. They had a sequence of 3 albums and an EP that was just stellar - beginning with ‘Theatre Of Tragedy’, followed by ‘Velvet Darkness They Fear’, and then the EP ‘A Rose For The Dead’, culminating in their masterpiece, ‘Aégis’. All of these records are gold standards to me. And then it got weird. They did away with their ye old English Shakesperian lyrics and gothic imagery, and turned electro. And I didn’t fancy that change, like at all, and so fuck them, you know? Well, not in such an obnoxious way. Singer Liv-Kristine eventually parted ways with the band, and though they did find a replacement, I didn’t bother with them no more. They would come to call it quits 16 years ago, and so I thought why not, why not listen to their last record? And it’s mostly very ok, I like the new singer a lot, but she’s no Liv Kristine - and maybe that’s for the better. They sound nothing like their early stuff, but here and there I could hear some notes that harked back to those days. It was good, probably a 7/10 good.
Next week I’m not too sure yet. Maybe I can think of a few more ladies to redeem some of the duds from this week. It maybe I’ll spend some time with some old geezers that were really important to me from the mid-80s onwards.
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