Agua de Annique
Air
The End
Anneke earns her wings on her solo debut
It was disappointing to hear Anneke van Giersbergen’s announcement this past June that she’d decided to leave the Gathering after 13 very fruitful years, but we sure didn’t have to wait very long to hear her new band, as the debut album by Agua de Annique has the incomparable Dutch singer in full control over her music for the first time. While the Gathering displayed an incredible knack for near-perfection on their last six studio albums, what we hear on the understated Air is an artist relishing the chance to go her own way, and van Giersbergen’s renewed passion for her music is palpable.
She and her three bandmates tread carefully into new musical territory, yet the foursome still retains many of the characteristics of her former band, and clearly the subtle route was the right choice. Van Giersbergen’s lyrical themes eschew her previous ambiguous style in favor of more direct subjects (everything from raw sexuality to Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door), and the arrangements, while eclectic, avoid coming off as scattershot. Opener “Beautiful One” will feel comfortably familiar to Gathering fans, a natural progression from last year’s Home, but it’s not long before the band establishes an identity of their own. The seething “Witnesses” exudes pent-up energy, bolstered by some of van Giersbergen’s most impassioned singing since if_then_else, the piano-driven “Ice Water” is reminiscent of Damien Rice, only with a harder edge, while “Yalin”’s shift from regret to reconciliation is mirrored beautifully in the music, encapsulating Air’s effortless blend of the adventurous and the accessible. —Adrien Begrand
