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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, heavy...in a class of its own., February 24, 2003
A long time ago this was my first purchase of The Gathering's catalogue because the general consensus seemed to indicate it was their best. I have all of their albums now and often feel torn about which album of theirs I like the most. However, it's easy to make a case for _Nighttime Birds_ as top of the line.The Gathering left the whole doom metal thing behind before _Mandylion_, and with _Nighttime Birds_ they continue their exploration of beautiful female vocals with the heavier backdrop. _Nighttime Birds_ shows the lighter, more ethereal side of the band taking hold more strongly as well. "On Most Surfaces" opens the album surging through heavy riffs and moody atmospheres, and it has a soaring vocal that would probably be dismissed as bombastic were Anneke van Giersbergen's voice not so incredible. Hers is a voice of diamond and ice, beautiful but chilling. It is not surprising that when she sings, "I am the snow falling down on you," the spine-tingling kiss of her words are as soft and light as falling snowflakes. Songs like "Kevin's Telescope" and the later parts of "Confusion" climb to great heights, heaved up by powerful epic billows of keyboards and electric distortion. Cryptic lyrics go well with the aura of mystery painted by ethereal guitar lines and penetrating vocal melodies of the title track, as well as the inconspicuous layer of stark percussion which hides behind guitar and keys. "The May Song" is interesting, juxtaposing the warmth of a mellow Hammond organ (love that sound) and softly strummed guitars with a confrontational vocal backed by a more aggressive arrangement on the chorus. "Shrink" is a haunting piano ballad with van Giersbergen's voice bleeding onto the floor in the prettiest way. "I shrink and shrink until I'm gone," she sings sadly as an understated eighth-rock beat enters with a vaporous guitar line snaking through the arrangement. Beautiful. Although I think I prefer the experimentation and atmosphere on _How to Measure a Planet?_, _Nighttime Birds_ is an excellent work. I probably listen to it more anyway since it's not as long, also (it can be hard to squeeze in a double-album sometimes). Really though, you can't go wrong with any album of The Gathering's that involves Anneke van Giersbergen. That voice is the audio equivalent of Tropicana orange juice: pure, rich in vitamins, and tasty.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Anneke Is Awesome, June 24, 2005
Anneke and Tarja from Nightwish are my two favorite female lead singers when it comes to this kind of music. While with Nightwish, we have over-the-top sythesizers and powerful operatic voices, The Gathering are more laid-back, delivering a more subtle power through lead-vocalist Anneke.
Anneke is by far superior to the Evanescense singer. It's difficult for me to compare the two, as I see them as from two completely separate genres. The Gathering sounds more gothic and less like Britney Spears trying to be gothic. Evanescense is okay...they're better than Tapping the Vein, but that's not saying a whole lot. This band is miles above the two: they started as a gothic band and slowly became more acceptable to a larger audience. But the fact is that they appeal to BOTH the goth AND the pop crowds, and if that is not signs of a talented band, I don't know what is.
Only reason I rate it four stars is because I don't really like the more pop-sounding melodies they use, but that's more an issue of personal taste than a defect of the band.
Highlights for me include: "Nighttime Birds", "Confusion", and "Kevin's Telescope".
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great follow-up to Mandylion, October 6, 2003
On their second release featuring vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen, the Dutch band The Gathering moves even further away from their death metal roots, though they continue to be inexplicably lumped into that genre. It's unfortunate, because most of the bad reviews you'll read of The Gathering are a result of this confusion. Either way, the band shows a growth in their sound, a continuation of the atmospheric, moody beauty first presented on their previous release "Mandylion." Annke's vocals, while certainly haunting and beautiful, may not be technically perfect, as pointed out by a few narrow-minded reviewers, but there has rarely been a case where a singer's voice was so perfectly suited to the music she's singing. It really is magical at times (right around the 5 minute mark in "On Most Surfaces," for example). "Nighttime Birds" is a solid progression to the sound the band cultivated on "Mandylion," being a little less metal, a little more atmospheric, carrying themselves futher from "death" and closer to "prog."
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by The Gathering 
