Lyrically, and musically, the award-winning Dutch artist lays her soul bare with the most evocative record of her career – captivating song-stories told with acoustic guitars, strings, horns, percussion, and Anneke’s hypnotic vocal harmonies.
Anneke van Giersbergen announced the release of her new solo album ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ last year. Today sees the release of the second single and video of said album, called “Hurricane”. Anneke comments on the single as follows: “For the new album I wrote a lot of songs filled with messages of love and heartache, but I also went on a more propulsive journey, with darker storytelling. The percussive opening groove of ‘Hurricane’ is maintained until a slightly ominous middle section. The track closes with heavy drums and a glorious trumpet solo.”
You can watch the video here:
‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ is available for pre-order. The album will be available as eco-friendly CD Digipak (plastic-free), as 180g Gatefold LP (incl. the album on CD) & as digital album. It will be released on February 26th, 2021.
Tracklisting: 01. Agape 02. Hurricane 03. My Promise 04. I Saw A Car 05. The Soul Knows 06. The End 07. Keep It Simple 08. Lo And Behold 09. Losing You 10. Survive 11. Love You Like I Love You
The new album’s title, ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’, refers to the idea that, when facing personal challenges, we are forced to find answers to life’s biggest questions. But, at this point in her near-three-decade-long music career, this solo album – and, crucially, the heartbreak that inspired it – was not something Anneke van Giersbergen ever anticipated writing.
In 2018, Anneke began working on new material for her metal band, VUUR. Although their debut album, ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’, was met with a mixed reception, fans were warming up to their heavy, progressive sound. Therefore, a rapid follow-up album would surely establish Anneke’s return to fronting a metal band. However, behind the scenes, these were troubled times.
Anneke shares, ”My belief in VUUR saw me spend all my savings on recording VUUR’s debut album and taking the band on the road. After completing our first touring cycle, I realized that more VUUR would mean yet more, huge financial risks.”
To make matters worse, in 2018, her long-lasting marriage, which had always been wonderful, unexpectedly saw a storm approaching. Anneke adds, “I instantly knew I needed to write music about fixing my life. This creative endeavour would be far too personal for a VUUR album. And it would also require solitude.”
With just her acoustic guitar and basic recording gear, Anneke retreated to a small house near the woods, just outside her hometown of Eindhoven. She let go of the pressures of what VUUR’s future might be, and fell into the meditative process of writing a solo album. In 2019, work continued on the new songs. In 2020, Anneke asked her friend and producer, Gijs Coolen, to help finish the album.
Throughout the completion of the album, Anneke’s fragile, acoustic song-stories were fused together with an alchemy of panoramic strings, horns, and percussion. The resulting 11-track record has all the intimacy of Anneke serenading an audience of one, combined with surprising departures into swampier, foot-stomping grooves.
The Japanese art of kintsugi has inspired Anneke to use a repaired heart as the album’s symbol. Kintsugi teaches that bringing together the pieces of a broken object – with the use of a precious metal – adds value and uniqueness to it. And, instead of giving up on their marriage, Anneke and her husband decided to take the time to mend their bond. They now cherish the repaired heartbreak as something profoundly valuable.
Their journey through this personal storm, and the album that Anneke created in the eye of it, proves that the darkest skies truly are the brightest.
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‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ is Anneke’s 23rd career album. It proves, once again, that the award-winning Dutch artist defies being pigeonholed by any genre.
After thirteen years as the front woman for melancholic metallers, The Gathering, she struck out on her own in 2007. Since then, her creativity has known no bounds. Anneke quickly solidified a successful solo career (initially under the moniker Agua de Annique), and has recorded and performed with Canadian metal genius Devin Townsend multiple times. She has also lent her serene yet powerful voice to the likes of: Anathema, Icelandic folk group Árstíðir, Within Temptation, Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen, Amorphis, and prog legend John Wetton.
2012’s ‘Everything is Changing’ was something of a milestone in Anneke’s solo career. The album, which was the first to be released under her own name, received two Edison Award nominations – Holland’s most prestigious music prize – in the categories ‘Best Female Artist’ and ‘Best Album’.
In 2015, Anneke van Giersbergen and Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) released their collaborative album ‘The Diary’ under the name The Gentle Storm. In October 2017, Anneke’s progressive metal outfit VUUR released their much-anticipated debut album. ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’ entered the Dutch Album Top 100 at number 2, Anneke’s highest-ever chart position.
Forever the unpredictable artist, in late 2018, Anneke released ‘Symphonized’, an 11-track live orchestral album. It was recorded at two career-spanning concerts alongside Residentie Orkest The Hague, and features rearrangements of songs from her entire back catalogue.
2019 saw Dutch music copyright organisation Buma Cultuur honor Anneke with the Buma ROCKS! Export Award. This is their award for the Most Successful Dutch Artist Abroad in Heavy Music.
In 2021, the release of her new solo album ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ will see Anneke surprise her fans all over again
In October 2020, progressive rockers THE FLOWER KINGS released their new double album “Islands” on InsideOutMusic, just a year after the group’s much celebrated “Waiting For Miracles”. Today the band have launched a brand new video for the track ‘Black Swan’, and you can watch it now here:
Roine Stolt comments: “’Black Swan’ was a little piano melody I wrote around spring 2019 – I thought of it as ‘Polish melancholic’ or a ballet piano piece. I did present a demo for the Transatlantic sessions but when it didn’t stick there I brought it along to the TFK ‘Islands’ session. Here it found its way in to the album and concept and with a slightly more dry guitar-driven sound and with nods to both The Beatles & Queen it became one of my favourite tracks. Hasse delivers some of his finest vocal on the album here.”
With an epic length of 92 minutes, “Islands” offers all trademark sounds and melodies, the band is renowned for including vintage keys, brilliant guitar solos, odd drum patterns and symphonic elements. Rounded off by artwork courtesy of the legendary Roger Dean (Yes, Asia, Gentle Giant, Greenslade, Uriah Heep), THE FLOWER KINGS present a dynamic and complex record that is bold, bombastic and beautiful.
Disc One (49:40) 1 – Racing With Blinders On 4:24 2 – From The Ground 4.02 3 – Black Swan 5:53 4 – Morning News 4:01 5 – Broken 6:38 6 – Goodbye Outrage 2:19 7 – Journeyman 1:43 8 – Tangerine 3:51 9 – Solaris 9:10 10 – Heart Of The Valley 4:18 11- Man In A Two Peace Suit 3:21
Disc Two (43:01) 1 – All I Need Is Love 5:48 2 – A New Species 5:45 3 – Northern Lights 5:43 4 – Hidden Angles 0:50 5 – Serpentine 3:52 6 – Looking For Answers 4:30 7 –Telescope 4:41 8 – Fool’s Gold 3:11 9 – Between Hope & Fear 4:29 10 – Islands 4:12
“Islands” is available as a massive Limited 3LP & 2CD box set with slipcase and 180 gram vinyl housed in one gatefold, one single sleeve; as Limited Edition 2CD Digipak and Digital Album.
After the release of their self-titled debut album in September 2019 Philadelphia-based duo Rise Twain have been keeping busy during the pandemic and are happy to be announcing the release of a new video for the track “The Range” today.
Watch the video here:
J.D. Beck comments: “The Range is a ballad that speaks of survival. This survival, however, carries a price beyond that of mortality and ancestry. It is a reflection of a time when people fought in a common country upon uncommon ground, it is tears from the mother for her son that never returned, a promise of a father to his son or daughter to take hold of destiny, and the song of a soldier who survived. Memories carry cold across water while a warm hat remains – a remnant of that brother lost – all for a greater good. The penance of those left, the memories they must bare, and the forgiveness to carry on is all that remains. The grass drinks the war up and grows another year. It is a calling of peace beyond, unto silence, and a resounding echo into our current time.”
The union of Brett William Kull (producer, audio engineer, and member of Echolyn, Grey Eye Glances, and Francis Dunnery’s New Progressives) and J.D. Beck (The Scenic Route, Beck-Fields, author & playwright) brought their collective years of direct and varied experience in writing, performing and recording music together for their impressive debut.
1. Everspring 2. Golden 3. The Range 4. Lit Up 5. Death of Summer 6. Oh This Life 7. Prayers 8. Falling Skies 9. Into A Dream 10. That Is Love
Talking of how the duo came together: “I produced an album for J.D.’s original band, The Scenic Route”, says Kull, describing his first meeting with Beck in 2007. “They were a rocky, progressive kind of band, like a Jeff Buckley kind of thing. I was immediately drawn to his vocals. He’s such a strong singer.” Kull says he and Beck immediately hit it off, what he describes as an “inevitable connection.”
Adds Beck, “I just knew I had to work with Brett on a higher level. When I came in to cut the vocals on the Scenic Route album, the way we worked together…some people you just gel with, and then some people you have a barrier with. Brett and I gelled.” They spoke of one day collaborating on their own project, which finally surfaces as Rise Twain.
Discussing the album’s musical direction, Beck notes, “There’s not a typical structural theme that we use over and over and over. ‘Organic’ is a word that comes to mind. Seeking openness through simplicity and allowing the complexity of music to exist without the necessity of overly packing it or overly processing it. With that we were able to achieve such a broad spectrum of sound, and a colossal sense of its existence, without having to have a billion guitars and a billion things put over top. There’s some colouring with strings and other embellishments, but it really is something very simple and stripped down, and it’s awesome.”
Kull adds, “There’s a lot of complexity in this, but it’s not overt in the least bit. But yet, when you get into it, there’s all this really rich harmonic and dynamic stuff going on.”
RISE TWAIN are: J.D. Beck: Piano, lead and backing vocals Brett William Kull: Guitars, bass, keys, percussion, lead and backing vocals
;;; In the studio with Martin and Norm., British Columbia, Canada, Isobel Springett
Martin Springett of The Gardening Club talks about the making of the new single “Strange Kingdom” due out this Friday, the single is from the upcoming album of the same name due out sometime in 2020
The Gardening Club is a Canadian progressive rock band that infuses many other styles of music and to create a one of a kind sound, led by UK-born and founding member Martin Springett an accomplished musician and illustrator..
The Gardening Club Martin Springett – Vocals & guitars Norm MacPherson – Guitars, keyboards & bassoon James MacPherson – Drums & keyboards
Anger, disappointment, disbelief … those were the emotions when a rapist, free as a bird because of our rotten justice system, raped and killed a young lady.
Here in Belgium, rapists and child molesters often go free or get a ridiculous punishment, by far not in proportion to their crimes. It seems it’s o.k. to treat women like garbage. Even worse, this happened many times before and it’s not only a problem in Belgium.
Worldwide women get oppressed, tortured, beaten, sold, humiliated, enslaved every day. And the ones who have a normal life, a family, and a job, don’t get paid equally compared with a male who does the same job. This is of course many times better than being violated but still, it just isn’t fair.
World leaders who say it’s no problem to touch women in their private parts without asking first and get away with it don’t help either. ‘No Woman’ can be seen as an old-fashioned protest song. Saying it’s time, the world starts to respect women as it should and punish the violators once and for all. The video clip features people from all around the globe, making a stand together for human treatment of our mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, and grandmas.
Special thanks to Peter Skov for the footage of Japan and Canada. Supah groovy bass by Petri Lindström. Mastered by Marco Ragni.
Vocals Stef Flaming, Marie Vancamp and Kim Mercken Mieke Driesmans as a guest singer All instruments Stef Flaming except bass and Drums Bass Petri Lemmy Lindström Drums Rene Marteaux
On October 30th, 2020 progressive rockers THE FLOWER KINGS will release their new double album “Islands” on InsideOutMusic, just a year after the group’s much celebrated “Waiting For Miracles”. With ‘Broken’, the group now presents a first track from this opus and the band has the following to say about the track:
“Howdy people – how is life on your islands and in your isolation? Good news is – there is music – and even better – there is NEW music from THE FLOWER KINGS. Here is ‘Broken’ – first song from our new double album/triple LP !! ‘Broken’ is a song about addiction, stress and confusion – Not a typical song for the album, because the album has no ‘typical’ style – it is just a wild ride of styles and influences. We’re super excited about you to hear ALL of it, but here is a first glimpse of the progressive smorgasbord. There is more waiting. Get your pre-orders going! Much love from Jonas – Mirkko – Zach – Hasse & Roine!”
The 92 minutes long “Islands” features artwork by legend Roger Dean (Yes, Asia, Gentle Giant, Greenslade, Uriah Heep) and all trademark sounds and melodies, the band is renowned for. From vintage keys to epic guitar solos, from odd drum patterns to symphonic elements, THE FLOWER KINGS present a dynamic and complex record that is bold, bombastic and beautiful.
“Islands” is now available as massive Limited 3LP & 2CD box set with slipcase and 180 gram vinyl housed in one gatefold, one single sleeve; as Limited Edition 2CD Digipak and Digital Album. Presales are available now! https://theflowerkings.lnk.to/IslandsID
Strictly limited coloured vinyl editions are available from these outlets: 100x orange 200x creamy white www.insideoutshop.de
Disc One (49:40) 1 – Racing With Blinders On 4:24 2 – From The Ground 4.02 3 – Black Swan 5:53 4 – Morning News 4:01 5 – Broken 6:38 6 – Goodbye Outrage 2:19 7 – Journeyman 1:43 8 – Tangerine 3:51 9 – Solaris 9:10 10 – Heart Of The Valley 4:18 11- Man In A Two Peace Suit 3:21
Disc Two (43:01) 1 – All I Need Is Love 5:48 2 – A New Species 5:45 3 – Northern Lights 5:43 4 – Hidden Angles 0:50 5 – Serpentine 3:52 6 – Looking For Answers 4:30 7 –Telescope 4:41 8 – Fool’s Gold 3:11 9 – Between Hope & Fear 4:29 10 – Islands 4:12
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