The Gathering

A Noise Severe (The End)
by Scott Hefflon

Double live CD, the last release to feature singer Anneke van Gierssbergen, one of the great female singer of our time. I’ve followed them from metal to pop to trip-hop and back, and one release, Souvenirs, still sits proudly in my favorites collection by my CD player. A slow, somber, electronic-imbued affair that sits next to Dead Can Dance’s Passage in Time, which was a greatest hit release by a great band. I’m not much of a fan of live albums by this point in my life, but a band that’s matured to this point, comparable only to Rasputina, Antimatter, and their own previous work, that’s worth investigation.
(www.theendrecords.com)