People who know The Gathering mainly from excellent rock albums like Mandylion or Disclosure will be surprised when they put on Always, the group's debut album. If you listen to the opening song The Mirror Waters, you forget charismatic singers like Anneke van Giersbergen and Silje Wergeland. The Gatherings first vocalist was Bart Smits, a long-haired boy with a deep grunt voice. With him the group
… recorded two demos that were received with great acclaim in the metal underground in 1991. The Gathering was one of the first groups to combine death and doom metal with atmospheric sounds. With that, the group formed the basis of the 'gothic metal' that groups such as Within Temptation and Epica would produce. The six band members were between sixteen and twenty when they recorded this album, so the youthful enthusiasm resounds. Always is certainly not the best album of the group, but the promise that The Gathering would later fulfill is absolutely audible on this ambitious debut. (PdK)more