Review by SilentScream213 for Gathering, The - Nighttime Birds (1997)

After The Gathering finally settled on a unique and strong sound of Ethereal, Progressive Gothic-Doom on their last album, Nighttime Birds is a continuation of this sound with just a few changes. The songs overall are a bit less heavy, with clean instrumentation aplenty, and a bit of psychedelia for good measure.

Atmospheres here are layered and dreamlike, lyrics are similarly abstract, and the multi-layered vocals of Anneke usually take center stage. She’s a crazy good singer, but I will say she “over-sings” a bit for my taste. Does every single line need to be multi layered? Still though, most of the time her voice is wonderfully dreamy and captivating.

It's not as strong as Mandylion and I wish the lyrics were a bit less abstract, but songs like “Kevin’s Telescope” go down as some of the best in this style of Gothic Metal.