In Praise Of..."How to Measure a Planet?" by the Gathering

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Back when I was in high school, I was kicking around the old interweb (back in the halcyon days of Napster and/or Audiogalaxy) and trying to get into metal, having versed myself in indie and all things hip. I didn't have much luck at first, having difficulty with the genre's sometimes laughable connotations (difficult, that is, for a dreadfullt self-serious teenager). At some point, I stumbled upon Holland's The Gathering, and heard a few tracks off of "Mandylion" and "How to Measure a Planet?", and was intrigued. Later, I found the latter album used at (the now-defunct) CDement in Montreal.

14 songs and 103 minutes long, spread over two discs, "How to Measure a Planet?" remains the Gathering's best, and one of the best albums of the 90's. Its charms are many but I will single out a few; Anneke van Giersbergen's talents far exceed that of similarly positioned female metal/hard rock vocalists, and she's at the top of her game on this album. Even her lyrics are above average: there's a certain poetic weight to her turns of phrase ("I feed you balance / I do need redemption / whenever I don't know") that may very well result from a tenuous grasp of English grammar.

But it's really the epic scope of the music that lends the album the lasting power it has. I pulled it out just a few days ago and was shocked by how well it has aged compared to the two albums that came before it, from the creashing climax of "Rescue Me", to the crunchy, fun "Liberty Bell", the dreamy, synth-driven "Big Sleep" and second-disc highlight "Probably Built In the Fifties".

The real highlight of my last few listens, though, has been the track I paid the least attention to when I first bought it, the 28-minute closing title track, on which they perhaps unknowingly trounce nearly every post-rock band in existence, managing to swell and recede without ever descending into "rocking out" mode. The last eight or so minutes are blissful and transcendent.

Anyone else care to pipe in about this record?

― Simon H. (Simon H.), Monday, 29 January 2007 16:29 (eighteen years ago)

Rolling metal thread to, er, thread.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 29 January 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)

i prefer if_then_else, but most people would probably side with 'how to measure...' as their definitive record.

'how to measure...' was the first record where they shed the confines which had them pigeonhold. it was less about doom-laiden, plodding riffs and more about exploring different avenues creatively.

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 09:46 (eighteen years ago)

Spectacular album! I just wish I'd heard it sooner than I did. "Rescue Me" is probably my favourite song from it. It's all about that theremin.

A very brave album, too, as they abandoned the female gothic doom formula they'd created in favour of more challenging directions, leaving the cookie cutter stuff to the Within Temptations of the world.

― a. begrand (a begrand), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 10:15 (eighteen years ago)

My favorite Gathering album. One of my favorite rock records ever.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:03 (eighteen years ago)

i was actually gonna do a thread for it too once upon a time! but i got sleepy or something.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:04 (eighteen years ago)

haha yeah, i really expected this to be an old thread when i opened it up

nice play on words incidentaly, scott! sleepy buildings was another solid release

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:09 (eighteen years ago)

Indie rock that was okay for Century Media-listening metalheads to like

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:12 (eighteen years ago)

i wrote a review of it way back in 1999 - which seems like a long long time ago. all of my obsessions are present and accounted for in the review too. neurosis, gathering, katatonia, ulver. all the stuff i've been boring ilm with since 02 or 03!

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/9931,seward,7409,22.html

(it's kind of a sucky review in retrospect. but what are ya gonna do.)

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:12 (eighteen years ago)

"Indie rock that was okay for Century Media-listening metalheads to like"

well, it was a metal band making a "rock" album. that's the difference. and it sure as hell wasn't indie rock. or what i think of as indie rock. way too bold & beautiful for it to be that.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:14 (eighteen years ago)

http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/4d/70/ac944310fca0a21ca616a010._AA240_.L.jpg

― Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

There's nothing particularly "indie rock" about it except that it's not terribly metally-sounding, save for a few moments here and there. It's a spacey hard rock album with metal cred, or something.

― Simon H. (Simon H.), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 17:11 (eighteen years ago)

what i like about it was that it was a perfectly natural and sensible evolution for the band to make at that point in their career. often metal bands will undergo some sort of radical change all of a sudden and it's simply too much too soon. but the addition of anneke for mandylion hinted at all sorts of possible future developments that the group would come to terms with on this particular records

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Thursday, 1 February 2007 12:55 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, the best album ever by a consistently great band (well, consisistent despite their never being able to match it since). And way more space-prog than indie. (If there is an woman singer in indie rock as warm as Anneke, I don't think I've heard her.)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Thursday, 1 February 2007 13:08 (eighteen years ago)

(Well, that might depend on how you define "woman singer in indie rock" maybe. But the point remains that there is very little "indie" out there that has anywhere near as much life or beauty in it as this album.)

― xhuxk (xhuck), Thursday, 1 February 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

like i said, bold & beautiful. although i still haven't heard a joanna newsom album!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 1 February 2007 13:21 (eighteen years ago)

how does everyone rate mandylion in terms of their body of work? it often crops up as the fan fave

― Charlie Howard (the sphinx), Thursday, 1 February 2007 13:30 (eighteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.