The Gathering – Home – 180 Gram Double Vinyl Record

Description

The Gathering – Home – 180 Gram Double Vinyl Record

Home is The Gathering’s eighth studio album and one of the most intimate records in the Dutch band’s long evolution. Originally released in 2006, it was the final studio album to feature lead singer and lyricist Anneke van Giersbergen. By then, the group had traveled far from the death-doom sound of its earliest work into atmospheric, progressive and experimental rock. Home draws those later interests into songs that feel unusually close and human. Rather than building every arrangement toward grandeur, the band often uses restraint, repetition and carefully placed detail to create a dark emotional pressure.

“Shortest Day” opens with motion and urgency, while “In Between” immediately shows how much space the musicians are willing to leave around van Giersbergen’s voice. “Alone” and “Waking Hour” develop slowly, allowing melody and texture to carry equal weight. Her singing is central throughout, moving from quiet concentration to controlled force without losing the conversational character of the material. René Rutten’s guitar, Marjolein Kooijman’s bass, Hans Rutten’s drums and Frank Boeijen’s keyboards form an environment around the vocal rather than competing with it. The performances sound measured, but they are never emotionally distant.

The album’s smaller transitional pieces are important to its rhythm. “Fatigue,” “Forgotten” and “Forgotten Reprise” act as pauses, memories or fragments within the longer sequence, while “A Noise Severe” and “Your Troubles Are Over” carry a heavier dramatic weight. “Solace” provides another change in texture before the second record moves through “Box,” “The Quiet One” and the title track. The recurring contrasts make Home feel connected to daily cycles of activity, isolation and return. Its concept is not delivered as a rigid narrative; it emerges through the way familiar moods and musical ideas recur in altered forms.

Attie Bauw produced, mixed and engineered Home, returning to a role he had filled during the band’s How to Measure a Planet? period. The sessions took place in a small church in Maurik, Netherlands, an environment well suited to the album’s natural resonance and inward focus. Hans Rutten described the record as more stripped down and primitive, with greater concentration on song structures. That description fits the finished work: even when the arrangements become dense, the identity of each song remains clear. The darkness comes from emotional exposure and atmosphere rather than from the metallic weight associated with the band’s beginnings.

Peaceville’s edition presents Home on two 180 gram black vinyl records in a gatefold jacket. The complete album is joined by four bonus tracks: “Blister,” demo versions of “Waking Hour” and “Alone,” and “Inner Combat.” Those additions provide useful alternate perspectives on the sessions while leaving the original sequence intact across the first three sides. As van Giersbergen’s last studio statement with The Gathering, Home already holds a distinct place in the catalog. This expanded format gives its spacious production and gradual changes room to breathe, making it an especially substantial edition of the band’s dark, quietly absorbing later-period work.

Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic

Track Listing

Disc 1 – Side A
Shortest Day
In Between
Alone
Waking Hour

Disc 1 – Side B
Fatigue
A Noise Severe
Forgotten
Solace
Your Troubles Are Over

Disc 2 – Side C
Box
The Quiet One
Home
Forgotten Reprise

Disc 2 – Side D
Blister
Waking Hour (Demo Version)
Inner Combat
Alone (Demo Version)