THE GENTLE STORM — The Diary (review)

THE GENTLE STORM — The Diary album cover

Album · 2015 · Symphonic Metal

4.5/5 · 2015-03-27
adg211288

The Diary (2015) is the debut full-length album by Dutch duo The Gentle Storm. The Gentle Storm is the new project of Ayreon mastermind Arjen Anthony Lucassen and is a collaboration with singer Anneke van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering, Agua de Annique). Anneke has also appeared on the Ayreon albums Into the Electric Castle (1998) and 01011001 (2008) so the two aren't exactly strangers to working together. The Diary, as usual for a Lucassen release, is a double album. The big difference this time is that, as a musician evidently willing to keep trying new things, The Diary is actually two different versions of the same set of eleven songs.

Similarly to how the Ayreon albums The Dream Sequencer (2000) and Flight of the Migrator showcase a soft and a heavy side of Arjen's music, The Diary features both a Gentle album and a Storm album to do much the same thing. The Gentle album is based around folk music while the Storm album features more familiar metal territory, although more in a symphonic metal vein than Lucassen's usual progressive metal fare.

I've actually been wanting hear what Lucassen could come up with using a folk based context, so I've actually found myself more interested in The Diary's Gentle version at first despite being a fan of metal first and foremost. The band have taken their influences for this version mainly from Celtic and Asian folk music. Anneke's voice is a perfect fit for this style; absolutely beautiful. It's pretty much everything I could have wanted from a folk album by Arjen Lucassen. The Storm version of the album really gives it a run for its money though. You've still got the folk element in there but the epic symphonic arrangements prove equally strong and suited to Anneke's singing. The riffs turn towards power metal a couple of times in this version, first in Cape of Storms and then again and more notably in The Storm. The album's Storm version isn't 100% heavy though, The Moment on this version for example is also largely light though still a different arrangement to the actual Gentle version. It's normal for symphonic metal albums to include something like this, but in this case it does rather defeat the purpose of the exercise in my opinion.

I've come up with the following as my personal preference for a merged version of the album, though this was hard to do as there are a couple of tracks like Heart of Amsterdam, Shores of India and The Storm where it could have gone either way and my final choices were based on the narrowest of margins, such as the (Gentle) Heart of Amsterdam's top notch folk melodies or (Storm) The Storm's use of power metal riffs.

Endless Sea (Storm) Heart of Amsterdam (Gentle) The Greatest Love (Storm) Shores of India (Storm) Cape of Storms (Storm) The Moment (Gentle) The Storm (Storm) Eyes Of Michiel (Gentle) Brightest Light (Storm) New Horizon (Gentle) Epilogue: The Final Entry (Gentle)

So as you can see my split is roughly even between both versions. This isn't to say that although I've made a clear choice between each version of the songs, other than those three more difficult decisions mentioned above, that the other is an inherently lesser version of course, though I will probably always question the so called Storm version of The Moment so not being that heavy until the closing moments (no pun intended). They're both excellent albums and that's what makes it difficult to choose between them. On one hand the folk album is something I wanted to hear from Arjen Lucassen but on the other the metal album is him doing what he does best in a slightly new way. Of course Anneke sounds excellent on both so the final call really comes down to the music and it's quality.

I honestly really can't choose. I'm pretty clear on which I prefer when regarding Ayreon's The Dream Sequencer and Flight of the Migrator, it's the first one every time, but a decision regarding The Diary is not so clear cut. But hey good news, you get both for the price of one, so The Diary is a win-win debut from The Gentle Storm. I'm going to go with 4.5 stars; it doesn't quite stand up to Arjen's best work, but this is an excellent collaboration with an amazing vocalist and I think fans of either of them are going to love it as much as I do.