Style: Female fronted rock/metal, progressive rock, soft rock
Primary Emotions/Themes: Loss, self worth, mental health
Thoughts: The Gathering is a special bands. They have created albums that transcend conventional rock/metal and electronic music. Instead they are able to tap into the deepest recesses of the human mind and the emotions that come along for the ride. These emotions are not fear or terror instead The Gathering have conjure into hope, loss, loneliness, and what it means to be mortal.
Prior to How to Measure a Planet the band was decidedly metal. Be it doom/death on the earliest of albums, or transitioning into more of a gothic doom band when Anneke joined. With this album the band started moving away from metal all together, into what I would consider their true sound.
How to Measure a Planet? contains many of the same elements that Nighttime Birds did, however the aggression and heaviness in the guitars has vanished. In it's place are fragile guitar riffs that compliment Anneke's glass like voice. There is no more clashing of titans here, the music and vocals now are in perfect sync.
The opener Frail let's the listener know that something has fundamentally shifted. The drums are softer than they have ever been, the riffs lack distortion, and the vocals display a level of frailty that the band has not seen to this point. All of this combined makes the opener a definitive statement, it defines the band anew.
It's not until Rescue Me that any sort of distortion enters into the album. The powerful riff rips through the air out of no where after the first refrain. It doesn't last long, but its enough to bring my attention back to the album regardless of what is going on around me. This one riff is not a turning point for the album, but rather a small call back to the bands past.
The band has always shown the willingness to experiment and that continues on this album. The songs are longer than they ever have been, with the instrumental title track being nearly thirty minutes long.
With the album being nearly two hours long it could easily overstay its welcome if it was of lesser quality. Fortunately that is never the case. The band knows how to space things out perfectly, how to pace themselves. Lighter songs will be followed up by more upbeat ones. Songs that channel the darker emotions are often followed up by major key tunes that describe wonderful adventures.
The Gathering found their soul with this album. None of the previous albums were bad per see, but it's here that the band found themselves. The following albums have a lighter tone them. Regardless of what they did after, this album stands as one of the best if not the finest moment in their discography.
Written December 11th 2023
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