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Good review. I always hesitate between this one and Mandylion. Both are equally awesome to me. Silje certainly does have a lot to live up for although having heard the samples on their myspace, I'm really getting psyched for The West Pole.

So which of their albums are worth checking out, cause The Gathering have a pretty inconsistent discography, in the sense that there is awesome stuff as well as quite a lot of shit.

It really depends on your tastes. You like it heavy? Go with Mandylion or Nighttime Birds. You like experimental? Go with How To Measure a Planet. You like it mellower with some electro bits? Go with if_then_else.

Personally, I like it all but I do tend to reach more often for Mandylion and if_then_else... or even more often Sleepy Buildings but that's more for the fans since it's a live acoustic thing.

EDIT: Just avoid Always... or also Almost a Dance, since they're extremely different and even for their respective genres, they're terrible. Avoid might want to avoid Home, it's decent but there's some quirky songs and some boring ones. Souvenirs is decent, but I like it especially for the duet with Garm, which is completely awesome.

Agreed with Esiel. The first two and Home (the last one with Anneke) are the weaker ones. The rest are generally good but it depends what type of music you're after.

Thanks guys. And Garm as in Arcturus? Definitely have to check it out then.

Yep, the same one! He makes an appearance in Souvenirs on the last track "A Life All Mine". It's an awesome, ambient and haunting track, which probably wouldn't be so out of place on the last couple of Ulver albums.

Have to admit Souvenirs isn't the album I go for often but there's a few tracks on there that are awesome (Even the Spirits Are Afraid, You Learn About It and A Life All Mine).

i really like The Gathering when they're at their best, which is usually when they're sounding elegant (good word choice, rio!), but most of their albums have at least one or two parts where they totally fuck everything up and do something really annoying. on this one i'd say that part is "Third Chance", especially the chorus. stuff like "On Most Surfaces" is crazy good though.

Why thank you, my noodly friend