Season of Mist
2009
The West Pole
About This Album
When longtime vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen announced her departure from the Gathering after a decade of mutual musical triumphs, most fans instinctively wondered whether the hallowed Dutch group could possibly go on without their iconic, signature voice -- which is ironic if one recalls that they'd existed for nigh on half a decade before even welcoming Anneke into the fold. Then again, those were pretty obscure, unsuccessful years, and such is the powerful imprint of vocalists on the music of most any given band. So despite acting relatively quickly to acquire a capable new singer in Norwegian Silje Wergeland (ex-Octavia Sperati), the Gathering's remaining members still had lots of people to convince, not to mention almost too many available musical directions to follow -- potentially with disastrous consequences -- due to the astounding breadth of music they'd experimented with over the years. Be that as it may, 2009's indicatively named West Pole found the Gathering wisely, and probably inevitably, sounding like their typically atypical, daringly eclectic selves, and the only telltale "trend" in evidence on first inspection was a revived desire to rock, after their gradual descent into a progressive sort of mellow trip-hop (akin to a poor man's Radiohead), partly at their former singer's behest.
Track List (try tracks 2,3 and 4)

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