UMUR "Nighttime Birds" is the fourth full-length studio album by Dutch gothic metal (later atmospheric rock) act The Gathering. The album was released through Century Media Records in May 1997. It´s the successor to "Mandylion" from August 1995, which was The Gathering´s big breakthrough album. "Nighttime Birds" marks the first time up until then that The Gathering recorded an album featuring the same lineup (and lead singer) as the album which came before it. They had searched for consistency and a sound they could call their own, and with the addition of lead vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen, they found that sound on "Mandylion".

So it´s only natural that "Nighttime Birds" is more or less a sibling release to "Mandylion". This was not the time to change a winning formula, but merely perfect it...and that The Gathering did. "Mandylion" is a great album in its own right, but when you listen to "Nighttime Birds", it feels like "Mandylion" was just an album where The Gathering were testing their new songwriting approach and then they went on to nail it 100% on this album.

Stylistically the material on "Nighttime Birds" is a melancholic and atmospheric type of gothic/doom metal with van Giersbergen´s strong voice and distinct sounding vocal style leading the show. She is thankfully not an operatic type female vocalist, although she can hit some pretty impressive notes, and she is generally very intense and has a personal singing style. To my ears all three previous album releases weren´t written with vocals being the priority in the songwriting process, although "Mandylion" certainly showed improvement in that department over the first two albums. "Nighttime Birds" is on the other hand obviously an album composed primarily to support the beautiful vocal lines. All instruments are composed to support and compliment the vocals and provide them with the best possible conditions to shine.

The keyboards which had been very much at the forefront of the band´s music up until then are much more tastefully applied here and often just add atmosphere or texture to the songs (as opposed to the lead instrument role they often played before), while the heavy distorted riffs and rhythms add doomy heaviness. There are however many sections without distorted guitars, which aren´t that heavy and add an atmospheric/dreamy rock element to the band´s sound. The simple melancholic melodic guitar leads deserve a mention too and the bass playing by Hugo Prinsen Geerligs is also an important element.

"Nighttime Birds" features a gorgeous sounding production. It´s dynamic, powerful, and perfectly suits the material. All details are heard in the music and the mix favors both mellow dreamy parts and massive epic heavy sections. I wasn´t surprised to learn that the album was recorded at Woodhouse Studio in Hagen, Germany with producer/engineer Siggi Bemm. That´s a name which is a guarantee for high quality sound productions.

So "Nighttime Birds" is everything a fan of "Mandylion" had hoped it would be. More dynamic, even stronger musicianship, superior sound production values, and vocal-centric songwriting which focus on The Gathering´s greatest asset, which in those days was arguably the voice and vocals of van Giersbergen. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

SilentScream213 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.

Warthur Taking on more melodic and alternative rock influences, Nighttime Birds is otherwise a repeat of the approach of Mandylion - combining Anneke van Giersbergen's All About Eve-ish vocals with doomy gothic metal riffs. It's a pleasant listen once again, and some compositions - like Kevin's Telescope - are genuinely haunting, though there are points where it feels to me a bit too much like a retread of its more successful predecessor. On the whole, I'd say if you loved Mandylion you will most likely enjoy this one, but at the same time I do feel glad the band took things in a more experimental direction subsequent to this because one more album in the exact same style as this one would have been too much.

bonnek For reasons that defy all common sense, I completely discarded this album on its release in 1997. After 2 years with Mandylion I had probably hoped for a noticeable departure from a sound that I had grown a bit tired of. My statistic reports tell me I only obtained about 25 albums a year in those days, of which only 10 noteworthy. No wonder I got a bit weary of some stuff...

Anyways, water under the bridge now. I got back into the Gathering from 2001 onwards and this album was a pleasant treat. The sound hasn’t changed all that much from the preceding album but the songs are easily as good and the band had learned not to overdo their instrumental sections (an obvious flaw on Mandylion). The Gathering isn’t a band with exceptional musicianship, so their power has to come from smart song writing and emotional vocals; and their progginess has to be earned by sonic experimentation and their genre defying attitude.

On Most Surfaces is one of the most astounding doom metal songs ever, it has a very strange structure, almost as if it starts with the chorus instead of the verses. It’s an overwhelming start. Confusion lets go of all things metal; it’s a slightly gothic mood rock that knows to avoid the frequent exaggeration and pose in that style of music. The Gathering have a much more subtle and suggestive approach. The May Song strays even further away from metal and follows the emotive modern rock path that Radiohead had carved with The Bends.

After the rather weak The Earth Is My Witness, the album has a next chilling piece of laid back rock music on New Moon Different Day. The verses have a decided Pink Floyd flavour and Anneke Van Giersbergen vocals are simply gorgeous. Well, she’s my Goddess for some reason, only contested by Kate Bush and Tori Amos. More amazing music follows on Nighttime Birds and Shrink.

Nighttime Birds is an album that I shouldn’t have overlooked. So in order to purge me from my initial blasphemy, I got me the lavish 2 CD edition, which comes highly recommended for a diverse range of music lovers, going from Floyd and Radio-heads to Kate Bushfans and melodic doom metal bangers.

Time Signature New sound, different music...

Genre: alternative rock / alternative metal

This is a borderline case for me, as "Nighttime Birds" is almost not metal to me. Trading the waters between alternative metal and alternative rock (with gothic overtones), there still are enough metal features to merit a "metal music" classification, but, it's really a borderline case, so I think (or rather, I know) that a lot of metalheads will not like it.

There are distorted guitars and heavy drumbeats and riffs to be found on it, but a lot of parts of the songs on the album are played with clean guitars, and the keyboards are very prominent, creating an almost athmospheric feel. There is nothing as such wrong with the music on this album, which is generally very melancholic but also very soothing, but, in my book, it is nowhere nears as good as "Mandylion".

I think that fans of melodic rock and alternative rock will like this album, and some more open-minded doomsters might like it too. But, honestly, I think most metalheads will prefer The Gathering's earlier releases to this one.